B.T.B. Training Initiatives to Be Implemented

The Belize Tourism Board has affirmed its commitment to developing areas throughout Belize in order to elevate their appeal in the hopes of boosting economic development and the preservation of Belize’s culture. As part of this initiative, a Multipurpose Center is to be constructed in San Jose, Succotz. A groundbreaking ceremony was held on Friday, March first, where Minister of Tourism and Diaspora Relations, Anthony Mahler spoke about the importance of these projects beyond just the infrastructure.

 

Anthony Mahler, Minister of Tourism and Diaspora Relations

“The Cayo district is always among the top three destinations in the country. So it’s very, very important for an industry that generated 1. 2 billion dollars provides so many working opportunities for people, injects the foreign exchange that we get a lot of it. And so almost half of our economy is dependent on tourism. Now, for far too long, the infrastructure that supports tourism has been neglected. Multiple governments, and I’m not gonna say who or what, but they haven’t looked at the physical product. That we sell and say, all right, we need to inject some serious money into this product so that we can sell internationally. For most of it, it has been built organically. No planning, no zoning, no discipline, no structure. We have a beautiful area in San Pedro called Secret Beach that’s just chaotic. We have to corral that. You have Mountain Pine Ridge, again, that poses some opportunities for us, but also some issues that we have to rectify and address as we move forward as disciplined and organized leaders that we work every day to ensure that we make Belize a better place. So these projects that we’re rolling out are just a part of the product building exercise and exercises that we have going on, um, under the Ministry of Tourism and Diaspora Relations and the Belize Tourism Board. Now, a part of that, even though we have to fix the infrastructure, we have to continue to build our people, so training is important. We are going to launch some training initiatives on this side as well during the summer months. And so all of these things create a world class tourism destination.”