B.T.I.A. questions commitment of government

B.T.I.A. president Lucy Fleming says she was encouraged by Espat’s words and called on government to work closely along with the tourism industry to make it benefit all Belizeans.

Lucy Fleming, President of B.T.I.A.
?We are the ones from private sectors standpoint who have built the industry. We?ve worked with the government in terms of government supply and some of the infrastructure, but at the end of the day we feel, myself and my colleagues, that we have a lot of information to impart to government and we feel until we get around the table and we actually talk about how we feel, we are positioned within the global network, we are really shooting in the dark in a sense with government and we feel that government are really coming out with some policies which we are curious about. We certainly heard–we were heartened to hear the Prime Minister?s speech when he spoke in February in the industry presentation with B.T.B., and he said that government would definitely be considering tourism as a national priority, and he had vowed to strengthen the overnight stay sector. So really this kind of, to us, begs the question if that the case, then why do the overnight sector receive the worse possible tax rating under the new so-call tax reforms. … I feel that certainly in Belize we have all the ingredients. We have everything to move forward, but we need the entrepreneurial spirit to have a fertile ground to grow, and I believe that some of what Minister Espat eluded to would really allow for that opportunity.?

The B.T.I.A. claims a membership of around six hundred.