BTIA prepares for Belize Tourism Expo

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

The Belize Tourism Expo is set to open exactly one week from today. The event caters to everyone who is involved and interested tourism, as Andrew Godoy, Director of the organizing agency, the Belize Tourism Industry Association explains.

Andrew Godoy, BTIA Director

"It just to shows that, all of us should be involved with the promotion of the country. We are looking at bringing in over a hundred and forty international travel professionals who actually go out there and sell Belize. And so we realize that tourism is one of the number one driving forces in our economy today and these people are actually selling our country out there. We all have to care at the end of the day. BETEX is a show that promotes tourism. It’s the only organized show in Belize, the largest and only of its kind. So then we all need to care and support this show. What the show does is it’s a one week event but it offers two days of marketplace where these international travel and trade professionals will meet with local suppliers and work out contracts and packages. After that we take them on three days expedition through the country. So we’re saying, rather than only coming in and experiencing or doing business we have you go and actually experience the product itself so that when you go back you know what you are selling, you actually experienced the product.

Q: Are there any added features?

Godoy:" Because the show is fairly new, we had the last one on 2004, and its far different from the ones we had in 1996 and 1997 what we’ve done in 2004 and in 2006 in fact is that we have restructure the show, we have revamped the entire way the show is organized. Before we did not offer the expedition portion; now we’ve offered the expedition portion."

Godoy says while the Expo has been criticized by some, it has also been applauded.

Andrew Godoy, BTIA Director

“It works. One of the things we have always said is after 2004 show, once you have a show like BETEX you have to do you follow up and we try to sensitize the stakeholders. This is why we offer supplier-seminars so that we could get them in tune with the process of how you negotiate with these travel agents once they are here in country you sit in front of them you only have fifteen minutes to negotiate contracts and agreements with them. Once you’ve done so it does not end there, you have to follow up, you have to continue calling them to ensure that you create that kind of relationship, that friendship where you establish the business linkages. And from that the ones that we’ve had success reports from, a lot of the folks have said they have seen increases. In fact Tropic Air for one, who participated in 2004 and kind of contributed almost twenty thousand in flights carrying people across the country, they reported to us in fact Tropic Air grossed at the end of the year had increased by so much. Not only Tropic Air but a lot of the other hotels and properties that have reported that they have seen increases.”

Director of the B-T-I-A, Andrew Godoy