Year to date tourist arrivals up 18 percent

Even though we’ve been conditioned to expect nothing but good news from Belize’s booming tourism industry, the latest statistics are still pretty mind-boggling. For the first eleven months of the year, tourist arrivals at the Philip Goldson International Airport, the nation’s primary port of entry, are up an astounding eighteen point one percent over 2002. One hundred and thirty-six thousand, nine hundred and three bona fide tourists passed through the P.G.I.A. between January and November compared to one hundred and fifteen thousand, nine hundred and thirty-nine for the same period last year. With December still to be tallied, it is likely that 2003 airport arrivals will set a record of close to one hundred and fifty thousand, a projected increase of around twenty thousand visitors.