Friday, August 21, 2015. BMG: After a poor first quarter, overnight tourist arrivals show enough improvement to slow the reduction in figures to under one percent for the first seven months of 2015, according to the Belize Tourism Board. Meanwhile, cruise ship passenger arrivals have so far not made up the slack entirely, with a minor increase of 0.2% over 2014.
Belize Tourism Board
(BTB)
Cumulative arrivals are down 0.8% year over year despite increases in June (1.6%) and July (3%). As previously reported lesser numbers of Canadian tourists are visiting due to a local economic downturn.
Cruise arrivals in 2015 have seen major increases in January and March, with 16.6% and 15.8% increase, respectively. February 2015 saw a slight decrease of 2.7% which resulted from the cancellation of two ships due to adverse weather conditions.
2014, says the BTB, was an outlier year in regards to summer months in the cruise industry, as deployments from other regions were redirected to Belize increasing the booking calls. The bookings for 2015 have maintained as scheduled and showed an increase of 0.2% cumulative.
The Board projects an overall increase in overnight arrival numbers over 2014 and will continue to monitor global conditions, in the coming months and diversify its marketing, working on marketing initiatives into South America and Europe.