What's going to be happening in the next twenty years for tourism in Belize? No one knows but the planners at the Ministry of Tourism say they have a well-informed guess - and that's because they plan to shape the future.

It's in The National Sustainable Tourism Master Plan, is part of the requirement for a $15 million Sustainable Tourism Program Plan.

It's has been presented in key areas already and today it was brought to Belize City - here's what it's about:�

Lindsey Garbutt, CEO BTB
"The heart and soul is for this to move tourism the most important industry I think in Belize right now - we have to have a plan. A plan that show us not only were we want to go but how to get there."

Christy Mastry, Sustainable Tourism Programme
"It really talks about our product development for our country - all the different areas we need to develop and enhance the development. What stakeholders can bring to the table - the responsibility of private sector and the responsibility of government as full partners in the future of tourism development. so it's really just taking stock of what we have and finding out what we are doing right. Creating a vision that promotes what we are doing right and then growing that vision for the next 20 years."

Lindsey Garbutt, CEO BTB
"They took Belize and place in into different zones and determine what kind of development is best in terms of density, size of hotels and just put it in a math form of where you should do what and not only where you should do what but how you should do it."

Christy Mastry, Sustainable Tourism Programme
"This is the first time that Ministry of Tourism has taking a stance on physical planning and mapping out the country with where they want to see development grow in certain areas that we need to promote the growth, where we need to decompressed the growth, where we need to conserve the growth altogether and really put in on the table how we are going to grow or double our overnights and build our cruise sector over the next 20 years in a responsible and sustainable manner."

"We have notice certain areas that have kind of overgrown which could jeopardize sustainability themselves but we also feel the country is still pure in the state of development but there are numbers and certain rooms occupancies that are very low in certain areas, so it's not that we need to be following this to reach 20 years but its every year the developers that we allow in are containing themselves to the vision the country has. So it's us committing to a vision."

Lindsey Garbutt, CEO BTB
"After today we need to make sure that we take it now to government where the decision will be made to give the necessary commitment to make it work."

The overall goal of the plan is to double the number of overnight arrivals by 2030, boosting the tourism industry's annual contribution to the economy to approximately US$1.2 billion US Dollars.

Channel 7