BTB unveils marketing plan

This morning at the Radisson the Belize Tourist Board unveiled its marketing plan for the 1998-1999 fiscal year. With precious little to spend on high powered advertising the B.T.B. is placing a lot of faith in its efforts at global public relations. The head of the New York based firm that handles Belize’s tourism P.R., Joan Medhurst, explained that public relations is the art of getting your point across in the press…without having to pay for it.

Joan Medhurst, Medhurst and Associates

“We create, with the help of the press, the attitude and understanding of what Belize product is. We send out press releases; we work with the press; we bring the press down to see it for themselves so they write about it. We give them ideas through our press releases and our press kits. There is a wealth. This is a unique destination as you all know. I mean you have more in one place. I mean, so}e people have ruins and some people have beaches and some people have diving and some people have soft adventure but you all have it, all of it, in one place. And some of the negatives is that you all don’t have a large enough budget to do the advertising to get the story out, you know, to get the sales force out there to tell the story. Really, as with every emerging destination, funds are always a challenge.”

The B.T.B.’s marketing plan includes familiarization trips for travel agents, sales blitzes in targeted U.S. cities, advertising in travel trade publications and representation at a number of key international travel shows.