The Belize Tourism Board (BTB) held the first ever Belize Travel Expo (BELTRAVEX) on Friday and Saturday, September 27 and 28, 2019 at the Belize City Civic Center and coincided with World Tourism Day 2019. The purpose of the expo was to encourage Belizeans, both at home and abroad, to become tourists in their own country. In August of this year, the Belize Traveler Campaign was launched and held the same purpose of encouraging Belizeans to travel in and get to know their country. With that, the expo was a continuation of that campaign, and saw the culmination of plenty stakeholders, hotels, resorts, and other companies under one roof.
Day one of the expo saw the engagement of approximately 1,200 students and teachers from about twenty-two secondary and tertiary level schools in Belize. To welcome those in attendance, the Hon. Manuel Heredia, Minister of Tourism and Civil Aviation, spoke about the expo, something he says the BTB designed with “Belizeans at heart.” The day, he said, was to raise awareness on the role of tourism in the international community as well as to understand its impact on the economics of Belize as well as worldwide. “Today, therefore, is an excellent opportunity to reflect on the importance of world tourism, to take stock of where we are and to which direction our country is moving. Making new connections to people and nature is key to travelling.”
Also present was Minister of Education and Deputy Prime Minister (who was on that day the acting Prime Minister), Hon. Patrick Faber. He has been acting in the capacity of Minister of Education for over a decade and, he says that, during that time, he has had the opportunity to see many beautiful parts of this country. As a result of the difficulty to get to some of these remote locations and due to costs, many Belizeans are not privileged to visit these locations. He continued that many Belizeans find it easier and more cost effective to travel abroad, often times to neighboring countries, for their vacation purposes. With that, Hon. Faber encouraged those in attendance to take advantage of the opportunities that BELTRAVEX brought to them. “In my opinion, and excuse my bias, this is the most beautiful tourism destination in the world. But our Belizeans don’t get to see it and so, I am pleased to support this kind of event.” He saluted the BTB for their inclusion of schools in BELTRAVEX, “because our students have wonderful ideas, they have great ideas, and we need to listen to our young people more. They are the future, and in fact, we say not only are they the future, they are the present of this nation.” He says that when they become aware of these destinations, they can be educated in the needs of the tourism industry, “to help in terms of sustainable development, to help in terms of marketing our beautiful product, to help in terms of ensuring our product remains a vibrant and wonderful offering for persons all over the world. Our students can be very helpful in this regard and so I salute you, BTB, for engaging our students in this regard.”
Besides being able to visit the booths and learn about tourism and its products and services, win prizes, and be the possible subjects of recruitment, the attendees were also able to watch a heated debate on sustainable tourism. The debate initially saw the participation of eight schools but in the final competition at the expo, the two schools who fought for first place were Stann Creek Ecumenical Junior College (SCEJC) and the University of Belize (UB). The topic of the debate was “Be it resolved that a sustainable tourism industry will translate to improved quality of life for surrounding communities in tourism destinations” and SCEJC argued the affirmative while UB argued the negative. The arguments from the students of UB seemed to be what the judges were looking for and they walked away with the first prize while SCEJC were runner-ups. Day one also saw a fashion show where participants were asked to make fashion pieces out of recycled material.
The second day of BELTRAVEX was open to the public, free of cost. People were encouraged to go out to learn and take advantage of once-in-a-lifetime deals to vacation at several BTB/BTIA partner and stakeholder hotels or resorts. There were attractive Belizean rates, affordable tour packages, and raffles every thirty minutes for attractive vacation plans.
