Tourism Minister on Shyne’s Appearance on Stage: How Do You Quantify That?

Since his appearance with Diddy on the BET Awards stage earlier this week, social media has been abuzz with comments, largely praising the former Bad Boy rapper for promoting Belize with a gigantic virtual Belizean flag during his minute-long gig on stage. Today, we got a chance to ask Minister of Tourism, Anthony Mahler for his comments on Shyne’s performance. This was how he responded.

Anthony Mahler

Anthony Mahler, Minister of Tourism

“To be honest, I’m glad for the man nuh. To serve ten years in jail as a part of that process is a difficult thing for anybody to do, so I’m glad for him that he had that opportunity to be on the world stage once more. I mean, how do you quantify that? How do you quantify the work that these operators do every day, selling packages all across the world. How do you quantify the marketing efforts from the Belize Tourism Board, from the Belize Hotel Association, the Belize Tourism Industry Association and all other entities who work day in and day out? Now every time you see Belize or talk Belize, in fact you have a group from BES, who is going to Switzerland or Sweden, one out of the two, for a robotics competition. It’s like the Olympics for robotics for young students. And they’re going to carry the name Belize out there when our athletes go. I have one of my riders right now on his way to Guadeloupe. He’s out there; he has the Belize flag on him, so every effort counts. Like I said, I’m glad for him. That’s where he wanted to be the past – I nuh know how long since he was deported but, I’m glad for him.”