Growing Tourist Arrivals to Belize Continues
Tourism in Belize has grown considerably recently, and it is now the second largest industry in the nation. The Belize Tourism Board says this shows the country is more of a year-round destination. The growth in tourism has positively affected the agricultural, commercial, and finance industries, as well as the construction industry. Important tourist attractions in Belize include the natural attractions of land and sea, making the areas important in Ecotourism, as well as the historic ruins of Belize’s Pre-Columbian Maya civilization.
Overnight Arrivals
Overnight Visitors are the number of tourists who travel to a country other than that in which they have their usual residence, but outside their usual environment, for a period, not more than one (1) year and whose main purpose in visiting is other than an activity remunerated from within the country visited.
The tourist arrivals in the first 9 months of 2017 continue to show a positive output. In October, statistics show that there was a 7.9% increase in Overnight arrivals in the month of September, which has an increase of over 1,400 tourists. The increase in the arrival of visitors was thru the land borders in Northern and Western Belize since incoming flights through the International Airport were affected by the threat of storms. Despite this, the total overnight arrival increase was 8.6% for the first 9 months of the year, registered a small but steady increase.
Upon comparing the overnight arrivals from July-September 2017 to 2016’s, the increase is 10.9%. Despite the fact that on those months, it is the traditional low season, still we can see an increasing growth; this proves that Belize has been continuing to be known as the “Curious Place” travel destination.
Cruise Arrivals
Cruise ships have been docking in Belize City, and average 850,000 tourists alone every year, some who partake in tours to nearby districts as well as the colonial city.
On the month of September, the increase was 5.8% since the previous year with a total of 57,719 cruise arrivals. The tourist was seen arriving at both Belize City and Harvest Caye Ports.
From January to September of 2017 the total cruise passenger arrivals has been a 3.7% with a 6.1% increase from July-September 2017 compared to 2016.
US visitors continued to be the largest market and still looking forward to more increase in arrivals for the coming months since there will be more new airlines that are considering having a flight to Belize. Some examples are, West Jet route that had commenced on November 3rd, 2017 between Belize and Calgary and the upcoming Air Canada route from Toronto in December 201 and hoping for more flights.
It also demonstrates that Belize is a growing, viable and attractive tourism destination to an increasing number of travelers, while positioning itself as a must visit destination.