Yesterday our news team went on a tour of two Southern Villages that are trying to make a name for themselves in the tourism industry. Now, Punta Negra and Monkey River aren’t Placencia or San Pedro, and they aren't trying to be.  These laid back villages in Toledo offer visitors an immersive experience far different than the plush packages found at traditional tourist destinations.  Alex Courtenay found out where tourism meets everyday life ...

Located on the remote shores of the Toledo district, the villages of Punta Negra and Monkey River offer tourists with different, off the beaten path experiences. In recent years, both villages have been receiving help to market and develop themselves as alternate destinations that offer the same natural beauty, with a more rustic ambience...

Caroline Oliver - Sales & Marketing Mgr, TIDE Tours
"So TIDE does a lot of work with communities in sustainable livelihood development and diversifying economic income opportunities; so in these two villages in particular we've been looking at diversifying more in the tourism market. So in Punta Negra we've helped to develop this restaurant, we've provided all the equipment and training necessary for the villages here to manage it as their own business because there is a lot of tourist who come in this area for snorkelling and things like that. So it's a perfect stop off for fishing tourist and snorkelling tourists. Up in Monkey River we've help to develop their nature trail, improving the pathway there, building boardwalks and a wharf."

The villagers have used the natural resources around them to develop tourist attractions that you may not be able to get anywhere else. In Monkey River, they use the wildlife, and in Punta Negra, it’s coconuts…

Doyle Garbutt - Monkey River Tour Guide
"There’s lots of different animals in this area most of them are nocturnal but animals like monkeys and raccoon, opossums; sometimes wild pigs, deer, jaguars if you’re lucky."

Susette Jacobs
"Usually we start from picking up the coconuts and then we'll take it and peel them and then I'll chip them and sometimes they will try. Then we will grater, we squeeze together and I'll skim it up and we and we’ll cook it together."

The goal is to increase tourism traffic, but special care is being taken to make sure these villages don’t lose their authenticity...

Caroline Oliver
"The kind of tourism that is being developed is very nature based and cultural based. Those two types of tourism in themselves should remain sustainable. The point at which you start attracting mass tourism is when it becomes unsustainable but the tourists that are interested in these kind of tours are very off the beaten path, very like cultural; they're going to be smaller groups with much less kind of environmental impact. So that's exactly the kind of tourism these destinations are attracting."

It’s the sort of homely charm that is only possible when the tourism attraction is the village life:…

Leonardo Castro - Secretary, Monkey River Village Council
"We live off fishing or tourism so you get up, you go fishing or you wait for a tourist boat to come from Placencia. We have the Howler Monkeys, we have a jungle tour, and we have a manatee watch. We have jaguars - you could see jaguars, you have all sorts of birds. Well the main attraction is the monkeys so."

And as these villages continue to develop, the residents have hope for expanding into the future..

Leonardo Castro
"We don’t have a, we live off mostly overnight tourists from Placencia, we don't have tourist that really come and stay in the community for overnight so that I would really like to see happen, tourist come and stay for the overnight. You know it's hard to get people to put up business in these area, to invest when you have bad erosion b because we have a bad erosion problem."

Calling it a bad erosion problem is an understatement. In the last few years Punta Negra and Monkey River have lost dozens of feet from their shoreline to coastal erosion…

Ivan Williams - Chairman, Monkey River Village
"Well erosion is affecting us for maybe for the past 10 years and then we have problem - it's not getting better. So we don't know what to do, we are asking for help from all about. Government does give us a little help but not much but now something is going to happen, a different organization said they were gonna give us a hand, help us out."

Leonardo Castro
"Yes it has been a real problem, like I said it’s hard for investors to come in and invest because the main attraction is right along the beach and we don't have any beach anymore. Houses are going down you know it's very hard to tell but we will see what we can do because we don't want to move from home but if we don't get any help very soon we will probably have to move - but we’ll try to."

And while the residents continue to battle erosion with the help of the government and some other organizations, they will also fight to promote Monkey River and Punta Negra on an international scale…

Caroline Oliver
"We’re currently doing a lot of international marketing to try and bring people not just to Belize but specifically Toledo and these sort of tours that we use to attract people to this area, it's a very niche market and Toledo is perfect for this kind of off the beaten path 0pportunities for those tourists."

Reporting for 7 News, this is Alex Courtenay

Punta Negra will be celebrating its 8th Annual Beach Bash this Sunday, and everyone is invited.