It's coming up on Independence Day in the USA, which means the summer tourism season opens tomorrow and the Belize Hotel Association members are ready for tourists to come pouring in for the next couple of months. And just to make sure the members are on the same page for this season, the association held its Annual General Meeting today at the Biltmore. President Lisa Carr-Caceres outlined the major areas that were discussed and the importance of tourism in Belize.
Lisa Carr-Caceres
"What we're doing right now is mostly dissolving the current board and re-electing a new board that will start out year which basically starts tomorrow July 1st and runs through next year June 30th. This basically is when we start our year, we still accept applications for membership and we'll be doing that throughout the month of July. We're happy to say that most of our members have already renewed their membership, so this is just a benchmark of where we're starting the year off and ending our previous year. What is discussed is basically what we did throughout the past year and what we plan to do for the next year. We always try to get significant keynote speakers so he can help us with not only the local tourism but also regional. The impacts of issues or whether they are a plus or a minus of what's going on internationally and how they affects us nationally. We always like to be optimistic because that's the nature of our business and hospitality. It looks very positive, every month even the months of May and June and going into July the arrivals have been increasing as compared to last year, so we measure all of that. Forty cents of every dollar in Belize that is generated is connected wither directly or indirectly to tourism, so that sort of gives you an idea how important tourism is to our country."
And that impact is reflected in the number of tourist arrivals. Carr-Caceres also gave an assessment of last year's season and discussed the positive projections they have for this year.
Lisa Carr-Caceres
"Belize does have a very prominent high season and low season. We have approached already our half a million visitation this year, from the beginning of this year. So obviously we project that that will increase, it's hard to predict as we do go into what commonly is known as 'hurricane season' which September and October are definitely the lowest months. However, what we compare that with are September and October of last year. It just seems to be increasing, even these pass couple months have been 20% over the last year. It looks very positive, it's hard to state a hard number of what it would be, and you have to remember we're getting more airlifts as well. Copa and South West certainly have impacted our arrivals in a very good way and they've also brought the price of airfare down. We're very optimistic, very excited, very much looking forward to this next year and definitely the numbers will continue to rise."
While tourist arrivals go up in July, December is considered the real high season. The low months are in September and October.
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