I.D.B. donates big money to T.E.A.

For too long, Toledo has been the forgotten district, especially in terms of tourism. But for the past ten years, community leaders have tried their best to attract visitors to some of the remote areas in the Toledo District. One organisation, the Toledo Eco-Tourism Association, T.E.A., constructed a total of ten guesthouses. Unfortunately, on October eight all of the buildings were extensively damaged after Hurricane Iris passed over southern Belize. Today, T.E.A. received a handsome donation of three hundred thousand Belize dollars to improve its guesthouse programme. This afternoon the contract was signed between Hugo Souza, a representative of the Inter-American Development Bank, I.D.B., Gabriele Wollensak, President of the Janus Foundation and Reyes Chun, T.E.A.’s district chairman. According to Thomas Qubec, Janus’ project supervisor, the guesthouse programme is one project his foundation is pleased to support and co-ordinate its reconstruction.

Thomas Qubec, Project Supervisor, Janus Foundation

“The Janus Foundation is interested in finding sustainable ways for Belize to develop. And definitely tourism is the one area that Belize can capitalise on.”

Reyes Chun – District Chairman, T.E.A.

“We see that guests are visiting our villages, but they don’t have no place to stay, and they usually go to Punta Gorda, which is the main town to accommodate themselves. So we were aware of that and thought that it was better to build guesthouses in the villages where visitors could stay and actually be a part of our culture.”

Part of the money will go towards marketing the guesthouse programme. The Swiss Technical Co-operation Trust Fund, which is administered by the I.D.B., financed the technical co-operation in support of the eco-tourism projects in the Toledo District. Once the guesthouse programme is improved, T.E.A. plans to include additional communities in the programme.