BTIA HIGHLIGHTS ADVOCACY FOR TOURISM

ADVOCACY BEAT E-LETTER - April 2010

BTIA’s Advocacy Beat is a quarterly e-letter that is forwarded to members with updates on the organization’s efforts to lobby for and achieve that enabling environment that can only make business grow and the industry successful in Belize.

CELEBRATING DIVERSITY... 25 YEARS OF ADVOCATING FOR RESPONSIBLE TOURISM DEVELOPMENT

BTIA in celebrating its 25th Anniversary will be centering its focus on a series of issues with the hopes to reinforce its message of celebrating diversity while advocating for responsible tourism development.  The past year was by all means a challenging one for Belize's economy.   Tourism, Belize's major service industry experienced declines in revenue collection from hotel taxes, decline in airport arrivals for international tourists and the operators and BTIA members in the sector reported several business challenges ranging from longer low season hotel closures, cutting and rearranging employee work hours and schedules so as not to lay off workers, ownership and management changes for hotels, reduced vibrancy in tours, reduce spending from tourists across the board in areas affecting arts and craft and restaurant services.

Safety & Security

Crime has well established negative impact on the quality of life in general as well as economic processes and operations.  Tourism is no exception.  The negative effect of the sensational criminal activity on daily life and business operations prompts concern and requires the assistance of all.  In conjunction with the Ministry of Tourism, BTB and the public sector security agencies, BTIA kicked off a series of safety and security consultations in the tourism destinations across Belize in September of 2009 and intends to continue with the activity.

Tourism Master Planning

In critical preparation to feed into the consultation process for the development of Belize Tourism Master Plan, BTIA has secure the assistance of the International Institute of Cooperation & Agriculture to conduct critical community and industry consultations that will result in the comprehensive formulation of Tourism Needs Development & Tourism Community Development Plans.  This process will be undertaken in a comprehensive manner and has been discussed among BTIA, the Hon. Minister for Tourism, CEO for Ministry of Tourism and the new Director of Tourism Seleni Matus.  The process is anticipated to be completely collaborative and provide that coordinated feedback that will feed into the national process for the development of the Tourism Master Plan being developed under the IADB Sustainable Tourism Project.  The communities to be covered under this process include Orange Walk, Corozal, Dangriga, Toledo and Placencia.