Espat honoured by U.S. magazine

The year 2000 was an impressive one for Belize’s tourism industry and so far 2001 is off to a great start. The latest good news is that Minister of Tourism Mark Espat has been named as Travel Agent Magazine’s “Person of the Year” for Latin America. Travel Agent may not be a household name, but in the important world of the U.S. travel industry it’s the equivalent of a film director winning the Academy Award. Director of Tourism Tracy Taegar told News 5 that Espat’s honour reflects positively on the entire country.

Tracy Taegar, Director of Tourism

“”We’ve been competing with destinations like Mexico, Costa Rica, certainly South American destinations like Brazil and Peru, so it’s a very big honour for us because it helps to put into the forefront what we’ve been working very hard for over the past twenty-seven, twenty-eight months. Belize is certainly growing in importance, it’s in the forefront of our North American visitors, which is our main target market and certainly we have been able to achieve a lot with very limited resources. So I think a lot of that credit needs to go to our minister who has a lot of vision obviously and has given us the flexibility to do the things that we think can help promote Belize.”

Stewart Krohn

“We know that you staff has been working hard, the minister, the ministry has been working hard, but luck has a little bit to do with it too doesn’t it? Belize really is on a roll, there was Marion Jones and the flag in the Olympics, there was “Temptation Island”, now there’s this award for Minister Espat. What do things like that mean to the overall tourism campaign?”

Tracy Taegar

“The exposure that it gives to Belize is exposure that we certainly can’t pay for. In the case of the Marion Jones phenomena, you and I know that the viewership that we got was unprecedented. In terms of “Temptation Island”, certainly our staff had a lot do with that in terms of getting them to visit Belize and consider Belize among the other destinations that they were looking at. But sixteen point six million viewers in North America is exposure again that we could not afford.”

In naming Espat, the magazine cited his efforts at international marketing, the tremendous increases in tourism arrivals and the industry’s quick recovery following Hurricane Keith.