Borders Reopening with Protocols

Today, Minister of Tourism and Diaspora Relations, Anthony Mahler responded to a myriad of questions, beginning with the cabinet decision to reopen land borders on January first. Minister Mahler breaks down the protocols being put in place for Belizeans traveling to and from Mexico and Guatemala.   

Anthony Mahler, Minister of Tourism & Diaspora Relations

Anthony Mahler

“In Cabinet we decided that once you’re going for less than 24 hours, then you don’t have to test when coming back in. And so, but we are looking at seriously having only people who are fully vaccinated going in and out. There is always going to be some risk dealing with COVID or any other virus that we will be confronting in the future, so we are trying our best to have the borders open for Belizeans as well. As you know in the middle of this year, we opened for tourism flow and so we think it is high time for us to open up for Belizeans just like we did for the airport. From a tourism standpoint, first, borders have been open for tourist traffic since June or July, but there were some measures in place that made it onerous for them to travel back and forth. We believe that just by the nature of the industry in terms of the time – this is the peak season – we believe that we are going to see a lot more flows inbound and outbound. That’s where Border Management makes most of the money for those persons going outbound. And in terms of locals, we just can’t keep lockdown forever. As long as we put in the protocols, the processes in place to have a safe back and forth across the border, we believe so. We did so with the Free Zone and that has been successful and so we believe that we can replicate that.”