B.T.B Official: 2022 Was a Good Year for Tourism

Abil Castaneda

The past twelve months saw the number of tourist arrivals significantly increase, much to the pleasure of people in the tourism industry. That was the sector that was impacted first when COVID swept across the world. But with renewed strengths and efforts doubled, coupled with strategic marketing outputs, the tourism industry is almost back to where it was prior to the COVID onslaught. The Belize Tourism Board’s Director of Quality Management, Capacity Development and Cruise, Abil Castaneda shared a synopsis of how travel was for Belize in 2022.

Abil Castaneda, Dir., Quality Management, Capacity Development, Cruise, B.T.B.

“A lot of trouble has restarted globally. The world is going to recover. It is projected this year anywhere around sixty to seventy percent of what it was before COVID in 2019, meaning the arrival numbers and all of that. For Belize, we’re doing a little bit better and I’m very happy. And that has to do a lot with the marketing efforts we’re doing and working with the airlines and the work that the private sector does with the hoteliers providing good packages and all of that, so. This year we are projecting that we will be for overnight tourism anywhere between seventy to eighty percent recovered. We do expect a very strong December and January and even into the February, March of next year for Cruise. Tourism is a little bit slower to recovery because we started later. But we are expecting our recovery of about fifty percent increase to resume arrivals in the country, which is also very good. We are expecting again for cruise tourism, some strong numbers in these last the last three months of 2022 and then beginning into the New Years.”