Email

Print

But the BTB isn't content to rest on its laurels, it's moving forward with a new logo, and a fairly radical rebranding. We got a preview of the new look today:..

Jules Vasquez reporting
This is the Belize tourism logo you've known for the past 25 years, "Mother Nature's Best Kept Secret, but now it will be replaced by this - the new Belize Logo. This was the moment of the big reveal at today's Industry Presentation in San Pedro.

The logo is designed by Olson - one of the biggest and most highly-regarded marketing firms in North America. According to their release, the BTB asked Olson to "refresh its marquee" from this old faithful, a good quarter century old to this what the company calls a quote "contemporary, yet classic vibe to represent tourism in Belize 'modern yet timeless.'"

Director, Laura Esquivel Frampton explains:

Laura Esquivel-Frampton, Director BTB
"Every now and again it's every single company who is trying to sell a product to look at their brand, to look at their product, to look at what they are doing marketing wise and try to mix it up. We want to ensure that we are doing that before it gets stale."

Alyssa Carnegie, Marketing Director
"When we are looking at designing the logo and looking at some of the shapes and colors that really spoke to Belize a lot of the shapes that we found were inner circular shapes; the shape of the clock, the shape of people faces, the shape of your plate when you are eating rice and beans and stew chicken and salad - a lot of that, the sun was representative of Belize. One of the shapes that really stood out to us is the Coat of Arms that's on out flag is circular and so it's a shape that really speaks to us."

The logo is also about more distinctive positioning for Belize in the market

Alyssa Carnegie, Marketing Director
"Mother nature's best kept secret serve us well for 26 years. The thing is that we are not a secret anymore. Overnight arrivals are a testament to that. A lot of people are increasingly aware but some of the research we did do show that people weren't feeling Belize while they knew about Belize weren't aware that Belize is a premier vacation destination because a lot of the creative material that was out there wasn't really standing out. It wasn't really defining Belize and what we have to offer and so what we tried to do and in the new campaign with "discover how to be" was to put a more appropriate call to action meaning what do we want visitors to walk away with - our potential visitors to see when they are here discover how to be. Discover how to be is a really great call to action because it speaks internally and externally to those people discover, not only discover your country but discover yourself, discover what you've been missing, discover what you've been wanting."

But what about the wisdom if it ain't broke don't fix it? The fact is Belize is coming off its strongest year in overnight tourist arrivals since 2007 - without the fourth quarter figures totaled yet.

Jules Vasquez
"How much of this is attributable to marketing savvy and success and how much of it attributable to dumb luck. In so far as (no disrespect) but there was the Mayan apocalypse and there was that bump that was created with that."

Laura Esquivel-Frampton, Director BTB
"This is a fantastic year and it's an opportunity for all of us here to tune our horns but it's a lot of hard work that went in before me and before the person before me. It's been a progression all along the way, so I have to say that there have been a lot of marketing efforts and let's not discount all the fantastic public relations opportunities that we've had. I know people laugh at us with the Bachelor, but the Bachelor brought us fantastic coverage and fantastic awareness, so I think when you couple the shot in the arm for awareness coupled with other activities such as the Maya calendar - I think they work together. We are not resting on laurels and say great we had a fantastic 2012 let's sit down. We continue to work and that's where we are going with the launch of the new brand, the launch of the new logo and the new design and looking for more intuitive ways to get our name out there and get our brand out there."

Ian Lizarraga, Chairman BTB
"If you have told me that 4-5 years ago that Belize was going to experience close to 11% growth in 2012 I would have told you you were crazy based on what I was looking at. Jules, what does that say? That says that in Belize if we work together we can accomplish magic. I think there is so much positive in and all around us every single day that if we challenge ourselves to find the positive or two positives for every negative we will inundate this country with so much good news that the bad news is put in perspective."

"I think Channel 7 should have a segment of the evening news dedicated only to the wonderful results of tourism in Belize. I didn't say monthly segment Jules, I said daily segment where we end the news every night with a little bit of good news just to give some people some hope and help us to realize that we are living in a wonderful country."

Lizarraga earned applause from the audience for that smooth-talk- but now a lot is riding on how the BTB shows itself in 2013 - and that applause could quickly subside if these record 160 million dollars in profits were to go down.

The new logo has not been fully rolled out yet - today's reveal was only a preview. The BTB also launched its Action Plan for the years 2013 to 2015.