7 News Belize

BTIA Worried About Sagging Occupancy Rates
posted (March 16, 2017)
The Belize Tourism Board has been constantly reporting record breaking numbers. But, while we haven't seen any numbers for 2017 yet, there are anecdotal reports from some hotels that occupancy is down. This was underscored when we spoke to the Executive Director of the BTIA yesterday.

John Burgos - Executive Director, BTIA
"We cannot take it for granted that because we saw increasing arrivals in 2016, that that's going to be the case for 2017. We have heard many concerns from our members stating that their occupancy rates was better in 2015 than in 2016. But the overnight arrivals have increased. How do you explain that?"

Jules Vasquez, 7News
"Air B&B?"

John Burgos - Executive Director, BTIA
"We don't know. We do know that there are lots of entities working under the radar. We are not the agency that supposed to be supervising. BTB is the one that should be doing that, but are they doing that? Is the cutting of funding will affect that? Do they have any strategy in place that's going to be able to increase the occupancy rates?"

In other Caribbean countries, accommodations offered on the website Air B and B has caused hotel occupancy to dip.

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