Several Tourism Destinations are Impacted by Hurricane Lisa

COVID-19 has proven that the tourism industry is quite fragile and not immune to shocks.  Those sudden blows can also be brought about by natural disasters.  In the wake of Hurricane Lisa, the Ministry of Tourism and the Belize Tourism Board have been taking stock of the damage caused to the industry.  Earlier today, News Five sat with Chief Executive Officer Nicole Usher-Solano who discussed the state of the travel and leisure sector post Hurricane Lisa.

Nicole Usher-Solano

Nicole Usher-Solano, C.E.O., Ministry of Tourism

“Like every other sector, tourism was impacted.  We have tourism countrywide and the Belize District, the central region, of course, was the area within the country that was most impacted and that was also the case with tourism. So, the majority of the operators, the hotels, the facilities, the sites, the attractions, Belize City, of course, in rural Belize District, the islands, you know, Turneffe, Lighthouse, all of these areas were impacted by Hurricane Lisa, and we’ve been on the ground just looking at how severe the damages were and trying to do that assessment.”

Isani Cayetano

“In terms of Belize City, as a hub for cruise tourism, where passengers disembark and go about their way to their respective destinations; what has that been like in terms of the tourism angle?”

Nicole Usher-Solano

“Well, overnight tourism is concentrated outside of Belize District, so San Pedro, Caye Caulker, Placencia, Cayo, Hopkins, a lot of these areas, Toledo, the northern districts, were not as impacted as those properties in the Belize District.  So for overnight, we didn’t see the amount of impact that we’ve seen on cruise.  The Fort Street Tourism Village which is the point of disembarkation for all of our cruise passengers had quite a significant amount of damages.  So as of Thursday, we were already on the ground trying to see what the damages were.  When we went out there, it was incredible, the amount of mud, the amount of debris in the streets, it was impassable.”