Expert: Belize can learn from Caribbean tourism experience
Tourism: it’s been growing by leaps and bounds, with massive yearly increases in cruise passengers and record annual arrivals in overnight visitors. But all that progress has brought problems of sustainability and resource management. However, as government officials and industry partners met this morning for an annual presentation on the state of tourism in Belize, it soon became clear that we can learn much from our Caribbean counterparts.
Vincent Vanderpool Wallace, Secretary General, C.T.O.
?It?s the experience stupid! If you spend a lot of time talking about all kinds of things and you begin to forget about the visitor experience, you?re missing the boat big time.?
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
Common sense … that was the gist of the talk by Vincent Vanderpool Wallace, Secretary General of the Caribbean Tourism Organization at this morning?s eighth annual Belize Tourism industry presentation. According to the secretary general, emphasis has to be placed on ?experiencetial tourism?.
Vincent Vanderpool Wallace
?I?m telling you, tourism is the only business on earth that if you don?t make sure that the people who are supposed to be serving and welcoming the visitors are satisfied, you?re gonna fail. If you don?t make sure the investors in the industry are making a profit and doing well, you?re gonna fail. And if you don?t make sure those two things are right, they never get a chance to satisfy the customer.?
?Tourism is the only business on earth where every single person in the community is involved, period. The customer does not care, the visitor does not care that that person who just treated them badly is not somebody who?s working directly in the tourism industry. They don?t care. They go back home and say I had a bad time, a good time depending on their total encounters. So it?s very important to get everybody on board.?
And according to Director of Tourism Tracy Panton, that?s the idea for 2006. With the implementation of its master plan, B.T.B. will spend seventy-five percent of its budget on marketing and product development.
Tracy Panton, Director, BTB
?One of the most critical areas we have is in terms of the cruise sector and the visitor experience is Belize City. So that is where we are going to be giving immediate attention. As the secretary general says, those people go back and talk about our destination and become ambassadors for Belize and so we want to ensure that they have a great experience.?
Latest statistics from the B.T.B. indicate that 2005 was another record year in revenues from overnight arrivals and cruise passengers … a climate that also prompted local investment in more hotel rooms and destinations throughout the country.
And while the debate between land based and cruise tourism continues, one dark cloud over the industry today is possible double taxation when G.S.T. comes into effect in July.
Tracy Panton
?It is the B.T.B.?s responsibility to support the development needs of the industry. At the same time, we are cognizant of the local macro-economic reality. Since the general sales tax is a consumption-based tax, which when applied to tourism services is ultimately paid by the guest, the B.T.B. will continue to pay keen attention to the concerns of the private sector and present meaningful feedback to the government as it relates to this tax reform process and its impact on the industry.?
During today?s ceremony, Prime Minister Said Musa promised that his government would treat tourism as a national priority.
Prime Minister Said Musa
?Our country faces some difficult challenges. For example, the recent decisions by the European Union as regards the importation regime for sugar and bananas have hit these two local industries hard. Remaining competitive and viable will be a major challenge for them over the next few years, but we are determined to succeed. Tourism as an industry has the potential to compensate for this negative economic impact. One of its singular characteristics is that as an industry it has the potential for growth in each and every district of Belize.?
Godfrey Smith, Minister of Tourism
?Tourism, the future is now. Let?s be apart of it. There were two things operating in our minds. One, we thought of how we could get the slogan to imbue all the stakeholders in tourism with a sense of the urgency and importance of tourism. And secondly, how we make it sound as inclusive as possible. Obviously the slogan has worked because gathered here in this room today I see hundreds of people from all across Belize.?
One of the financial angels of Belize?s tourism product has been the Government and people of Republic of China on Taiwan. Already, that country has plans to provide more technical support by offering internet classes to those in the industry.
Joseph Shih, Taiwanese Ambassador to Belize
?In the I.C.T. industry, the internet connection will be important to produce the opportunity and the employment for the people of Belize. And we want to raise that digital awareness programme here. For instance, the George Price Centre, the computer centre and the learning seminar we have run, runs very efficiently and more people, for instance about one thousand students and some S.M.E., entrepreneurs, they take advantage of learning such skills. And we want to bring in more of an expert in the area; I think that will be important.?
