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Flor Del Valle Musa - NICH
"We at the museum wanted to have - we also wanted to celebrate this day. It's our first year that we are celebrating this actual day, so we're having free entrance fee - so it's a perfect opportunity for Belizeans to come in - view the different exhibitions that we have up, and for example, some of the exhibitions that we have up - the recent one just opened - the people who carved jades and their descendants. We have butterfly collections; we have our coin collection; we have our stamp collection. We also will have different activities, like games, just so that we can interact with the public as well."

Shaniece Heusner - NICH
"Under the Museum of Belize, we have the House of Culture; we have Banquitas House of Culture in Orange Walk. San Ignacio, Santa Elena, or Si Seh House of Culture in the Cayo District. We also have Benque Vejo House of Culture, which is Benque Vejo, and we have the Belize City House of Culture Government House. These Houses of Cultures will all be having activities - separate - mostly educational programs. In Banquitas Orange Walk we'll be having an educational program; they'll be showing some videos about the Maya Groups. You can go there. In Government House, they'll be having some video presentations as well, and activities and games - giveaways. In Benque House of Culture, they will be re-launching the traveling exhibit pirates in Belize. So if you missed it in Belize, you can go to Benque to see that. In Si Seh, they'll be having educational programs as well."

The Social Network and Tourism

And while the museum documents the past, the BTB is trying to catch the wave of the future.

And that's social media. That's right, the same facebook that so many of us use so often is also a great marketing tool - and bets part is, it's cheaper than the millions of dollars it costs to advertise in Mainstream media. The use of social media in marketing campaigns was the focus of a workshop today organized by the BTIA and the BTB - here's how that went.

Jim McFadzean Reporting:

Institutions are now offering programmes in Social Media Management, and that's why today at the Radisson Hotel, the BTIA, BTB and the BHA sponsored such a workshop. The President of BTIA, Jim Scott says those who sell Belize as a destination must keep up with the times.

Jim Scott, President of BTIA
"These are the times; these are some of the tools that used to sell our product, to represent our country, and because we're going from San Pedro, Belize City, and Cayo, we're trying to get as many people involved learning to utilize these tools. Because the sums total of our efforts, and BTB's efforts, BTIA and of course all private business - the sum total - has a huge impact for the entire country. Internet-based marketing is a lot more affordable. With the tools that you learn here, large businesses are benefitting from them, but you also have a lot of tools and mechanisms that are available for very grassroots - a very "mama-papa" type organization. Because so many of these tools are free, with the exception of human resources and creativity that's needed to really enhance and capitalize those available tools."

Julie Schwietert-Collazo, one of the workshop's presenters, is a lead faculty member with MATADOR, an independent media company that produces websites and uses social media as an important tool in reaching millions of world savvy travelers. Collazo says Social Media has become an indispensable part of marketing, but a lot depends on how businesses utilize the fast growing medium.

Julie Schwietert-Collazo - Workshop Presenter
"Unlike traditional marketing tools like advertisements, radio or television slots, these are tools that the people can manage themselves. The interesting - and for some people the very challenging thing - is that it's not easy to measure or rely on the use of social media, and sometimes the story - the effective social media and the successful social media- has a very long tail. And the story about tracking it down and finding out what it was that made this particular post on Facebook or on Twitter successful, is a little bit hard to unravel. Facebook and twitter are obviously the most popular ones, and they are non-travel specific. A lot of the hotel operators and tour outfitters are also very familiar with Trip Advisor, which is review based site - a user-review based site - and other sites that may be in and of themselves are not social media tools, like Flickr, which is a photo sharing site or photo storage site, but within these platforms, they have sharing capabilities and commoning capabilities and ways to measure how many people are seeing your photos, for example. So those are just some fo the tools; there are lots of new generation tool, that even in the US, we are just beginning to experiment with. So I think that there are lots of possibilities here in Belize; that is really exciting."

Some of Social Media's most popular platforms are technologies such as blogs, micro-blogs, forums, review rating sites, and news aggregators. To put into perspective how valuable the tool is, meet Megan Woods an Independent travel blogger who has been working with the BTB and MATADOR. Woods is in Belize this spring blogging her travel experiences across the country.

Megan Woods - Independent Travel Blogger
"I think, for me, it's a about independent traveling. I think people who read my blog and who read Matador Network are interested in going to Belize independently and seeing what the culture has to offer outside of a tour package. So they read about my experiences and then they want to come to Belize, as well, and see what I've seen and do the things that I've done."

The BTB is already using Facebook in its new marketing strategy. Last month, the percentage of Facebook post views of Belize Vacations went up by 165%, and its post feedback increased by 61%.