Speaking to TTG on Wednesday (15 June), director of tourism Evan Tillett said a number of other trade incentives will be launched in the next few months.
"We are launching a number of rewards programmes later this year, after last year we did quite a lot of work with agent training schemes, which helped to refresh and revive our trade partners on our product offerings," he added. "We aim to have as just as many agents on the fam trips as we did previously before the pandemic."
Meanwhile, tourism minister Anthony Mahler said Belize will focus on bringing agents and customers back to the destination in the next few months.
"A strong focus for us moving forward will also be on wedding and honeymoon tourism," he added. "I think Belize has all of the assets necessary for this market. People want to have that boutique, smaller, wedding experience which is exactly what we can offer so we will be focussing on that."
The country will also introduce an Elope in Belize campaign, which will be rolled out through the trade and will focus on smaller weddings.
Mahler also discussed the government’s plans to secure direct airlift from Europe to Belize. "This is really key for us," he added. "We are looking at the UK, the Netherlands and Spain and we are having conversations with KLM, BA, Tui and Condor," he said.
"In the next 10 years we hope to attract 750,000-1,000,000 guests globally. From the UK we had 15,000 in 2019 which could increase to 17,000 this year, and if we secure more airlift and a direct flight that could easily double.
"We have 900 hotels with 9,000 rooms to ensure there is no over tourism and to keep within the boutique aesthetic of the island. There is also a maximum height limit of 250 rooms."
