7 News Belize

BETEX "Bigs Up" Belize
posted (April 26, 2012)
Turning now to some lighter news - the ninth annual Belize Tourism Expo opened today at the Princess Hotel and Casino.

It's good news because, this year - tourism numbers are up sharply. Call it the Mayan Apocalypse bump, or purposeful marketing - but when we visited BETX 2012 today we found not too many reason to complain.

Here's the report:..

Jim Scott - President BTIA
"Are we ready? Buenos dias."

Applause

Jules Vasquez reporting
And with that, BTEX 2012 was officially opened. If you don't know what BETEX is, don't feel left out most folks outside the industry don't and that's because it's an tourism trade show held in Belize for foreign buyers. Now there are trade shows like this all over the world - but BETEX is Belize's attempt to get a home court advantage:

Jim Scott - President BTIA
"We are home. Where better can you promote your product? Where better can you promote your culture and your destination than at home?"

That means all these meet and greets are not casual encounters; there's business happening here:

Jim Scott - President BTIA
"The basic terms we used for the agents that come here we call them buyers and we call us vendors. We are selling - it's not a panades shop but we got good panades here."

Not quite Panades prices though - many of these resorts represent the ultra-high end and can offer rooms for as much as three to 400 US dollars a night. But, right now, with tourism numbers up and 2012 hysteria everywhere, it's a seller's market:

Hon. Manuel Heredia, Minister of Tourism
"8.1% better than last year; last year was a record year. First quarter is 8.1% better in particularly January. For ten years we have never ever broken that 10 year record until this year. In March the figures were over 32,000 overnight visitors for the month of March."

Jules Vasquez
"Might this be a natural 2012 bump that you all might start saying that we are geniuses, we have solve the tourism thing but it's really a Mundo Maya bump."

Hon. Manuel Heredia, Minister of Tourism
"We are doing great work marketing Belize for that Mundo Maya thing but that is not what is bringing these numbers together, without that, you will see that even after this Mundo Maya thing is over we will still continue to have good numbers."

And so this year, BETEX drew a good crowd - with buyers who had more than a causal interest:

Javier Williams, Asst. Mgr - Victoria House
"The contracts we have made with them is many a times long term because they come and see the property and they realized what great deals they can get out of here and so meeting the new ones that come is really good because they get hook on Belize as we say."

Jim Scott - President BTIA
"Why wouldn't they come to BETEX, because they get to learn about Belize; about our culture, about our natural resources, things to do while they are here and of course all these brilliant products that are here; the hotels, tour operators, sites, restaurants, smells and so many good things. Things that you have pride in as a Belizean."

The Tradeshow session finished this afternoon - and visiting buyers are now on familiarization trips to prime tourism locations.

Home | Archives | Downloads/Podcasts | Advertise | Contact Us

7 News Belize