B.T.B. Floats $54 Million Bond

Anthony Mahler

The Belize Tourism Board has floated a fifty-four million dollar bond that it refers to as a “transformational bond”.  It is not common to see this type of fundraising campaign coming out of the Belize Tourism Board, but Anthony Mahler, the Minister of Tourism, says it is needed to expand the work of the B.T.B. When we caught up with Minister Mahler over the weekend in Belize City, he shared with us how the funds will be used.

Anthony Mahler, Minister of Tourism

“A lot of it will go into marketing especially to attract a European carrier. It takes a lot of money to go in there. We are also working on a Mexican carrier and some of it will go into training and so we are creating a training academy with the Florida International University. And then, some, the bulk of it will go into infrastructure. If you look, throughout the country you will see the infrastructure is not up to par to the natural assets that we have. So we need to have lights. We need to improve water, we need to improve waste management, we need to have marinas where people can dock their boats internationally and locally. We are looking at rehabilitation center in Gale’s Point with the Clear Water Aquarium. All of these projects will come online. We have a committee that will look at the projects. We are just talking to destinations and the local government to see what we can collaborate on and then we will start rolling out the projects.”