So with cruise tourism shut down, now, the country's most earnest hopes turn to overnight tourism as a life support system, both for the thousands of employees of that sector and for the economy, which depends on the hard currency earnings.
So far, flights keep coming in - and that is the only very faint silver lining on a looming black could that's about to cover Belize's number one foreign exchange earner.
We went to the airport today where arriving tourists were practical about the situation and doing Sherri best not to panic:
This was the scene at the Philip Goldson International airport today as visitors streamed out of the arrivals lounge.
Some of them were well prepared with industrial grade masks. We asked some travellers and tourist industry workers how the global pandemic is affecting them
Person 1 "I think the place should lockdown for like two weeks or so and after that apparently to the Prime Minister you are not in Belize yet. So if you are not here yet, we should do some take some precautions by locking out, no mek nobody comes in right now. I think, when the virus could be in here already, it takes like 2 weeks or something like that before it really realise that it's full blown."
Person 2 "Currently we're on vacation, we're cautious but we still got to live and hopefully stat alive."
Reporter "How do you feel about the global situation?"
Person 2 "Quite terrified. Like not a lot of people are taking this seriously so."
Reporter "What about the economic impact?"
Person 2 "I think we're going to be feeling it for like 20 years."
Person 3 "I just think we have to monitor it, that's about it. People are aware of it, so just a heighten awareness. I were at a conference people were not shaking hands, they were doing fist bumps and washing our hands more often but that's about it. Right now I'm going to stay away from my parents who are a bit older, so we know that the virus is more susceptible to people who are older. So trying to stay away from them, trying to quarantine myself a little bit and just wash your hands regularly as they say."
Person 4 "We've continued on our travel plans and we are just proceeding with our lives as normal. I do worry about the global impact of everything shutting down but I think it's very over worried about and I think things are being shutdown unnecessarily.
Person 5 "When it reaches it reach but we just have to be prepared you know. Make sure we have all of our sanitisers and preparations in place. I think the Prime Minister just the be reasonable and he is trying his very best to make sure we do the right thing."
Person 6 "You can't just jump to haste because everyone is shutting down. Like he said, the people they are screened before they reach here, all we can do is hope and pray we do out screening here as well."
Person 7 "I think it's okay with us, we're prepared, we are doing our best to keep our sanitisers and keep out cars sprayed every day, every trip like something like that. I think we expect it and we expect maybe one day the airport will close and we don't have anywhere to work so we just take a long holiday."
Person 8 "I think people are going crazy, they are buying all the toilet paper and clearing the shelves of Clorox whips and we're on vacation and I'm not watching the news. I'm going to enjoy myself and I'm a teacher in Florida and I'm going to have another two week vacation after my vacation because they won't let me go back to work."
Person 9 "I'm not gonna overreact, I mean I guess I'm worried about it but I'm going to take care, take precaution and that's it."
Reporter "How about the economic crisis that this cause?"
Person 9 "I mean that's the real deal, that's going to be a huge deal for me and every country."
Person 10 "We just got word that our city had a first 2 confirmed cases this morning in Austin Texas and we're flying back today. So they closed schools today and we have a spring break next week in our school district so, yeah I'm just going to be - not isolating but we are planning to get away in that area for spring break we're going out to the hill country but that was already planned, so we're not changing those plans and I had groups I was meeting with that we've cancelled. I know my kids their birthday parties are getting cancelled and so I think people are just being cautious and trying to prevent the spread of the virus."
And while that's the good news, the bad news is that US Carriers are starting to cancel flights to Belize. We are reliably informed that American's Dallas Forth Worth to Belize and LAX to Belize flights are being suspended. And, American's daily flight to Miami is being cut back to one per day, while Southwest expects to also suspend its Fort Lauderdale flight, and other carriers are expected to trim the number of weekly flights to Belize. The losses in earnings, hard currency and jobs resulting from this is expected to be devastating to the economy and to the livelihoods of many in the sector.
