2024 Projected As Belize’s Biggest Tourism Year in History
On Wednesday, Belize welcomed the highest number of visitors for the season thus far, with sixteen thousand passengers arriving on Belizean shores. This surge in visitors showcases a remarkable recovery for the industry since 2020. 2023, alone, saw a twenty-five percent increase in overnight stays and a forty-seven percent increase in cruise ship visits from the previous year. Despite this achievement, the industry still has not been able to meet the pre-pandemic levels observed in 2019. But according to the Belize Tourism Board, this might be the year Belize meets, and potentially surpasses that goal, as they anticipate 2024 to be Belize’s biggest year in tourism yet. News Five’s Britney Gordon reports.
Britney Gordon, Reporting
It’s no question that Belize has made commendable progress in the recovery of its tourism sector since the covid-19 pandemic. In 2022, it was observed to have the fastest recovering sector of any nation in the region. The Belize Tourism Board credits this recovery to several strategies implemented by the BTB and the unique qualities Belize has to offer.
Lloyd Enriquez
Lloyd Enriquez, Director of Cruise, B.T.B.
“The Belize tourism board has embarked on many initiatives, but the most important one is looking at the airlift capacity. So we’re headed by the minister. There’s an airline development committee which actually goes and visits with the airlines and encourages them to come to Belize. So expanding routes is very critical for us. The U.S. market in particular accounts for 68 percent or thereabouts of our total overnight visitors. So that’s where we focus most of our efforts. And there are many different marketing initiatives as well…training for people to enhance the service delivery for industry, so there are many different initiatives all around that will help make Belize a premier destination.”
Britney Gordon
“Since the COVID 19 pandemic, Belize has been noted as one of the fastest recovering countries. What makes Belize unique compared to the other countries that are still struggling with this comeback?”
Lloyd Enriquez
“I would want to say the people. We do surveys. Our people are among the most friendly you’ll ever find. We do surveys every year, we call them exit surveys or visitor expenditure and motivation surveys. We do that every year at all our border points, particularly the PGIA and the northern and western border. And it keeps coming up year after year, how friendly our people are. We are genuinely friendly and authentic people and the biggest marketing boost, if you will, still remains no matter what, no matter what industry we’re in, local or international, the biggest boost internationally is word of mouth. And people really go out and spread that word about the friendliness of the Belizean people. So that is the biggest difference maker. I think, we have a ways to go in terms of infrastructure, in terms of places to stay. All of that remains true. We have a lot of work to do there. But our people, I think, we’re second to none.”
While the recovery of the industry last year was unlike that observed by any other country, Belize has yet to exceed or even meet its pre-pandemic numbers. 2024, however, is forecasted to be the year when Belize is finally able to break its long-held personal record and make history with its highest number of arrivals yet.
Lloyd Enriquez
“So, this year was a very good year for tourism in Belize. We recorded 464,000 overnight visitors to Belize, which was a substantial increase of about 25 percent over 2022. So that pretty good. We’re still a little bit behind 2019 figures, so we’re lagging there about 7.6 percent, but 2024 promises to be a very good year where we’ll surpass and probably hit our highest ever in terms of visitor arrivals.”
While cruise ships may supply the country with thousands of visitors every day, the short timeframe that they spend on land has proved to be an obstacle for some tourists, who are unsure of where to spend their money.
Cruise Ship Visitor
Cruise Ship Visitor
“We just arrived maybe an hour ago here in Belize.”
Britney Gordon
“You have any plans for the day?”
Cruise Ship Visitor
“We planned to go to the zoo but I don’t think we’ll be able to make it because our ship leaves too early. Maybe we’ll check out the beach area and boardwalk area and shop a little bit. Cruise visitors are quite unique. It’s one day. Belize is very expansive geographically. And that is part of the challenge, getting around Belize is not easy. We know how far it is from one destination to the other. So what we do is we work with the cruise lines to introduce them to new destinations and new activities that the cruise visitors can do within a one hour or so radius. So that’s most of the effort that we’ve embarked upon with the cruise.”
Britney Gordon for News Five.
