AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums Belize Life News BTB says Tourism Arrival Up In Overnight And Cruise

The Belize Tourism Board today released the first quarter statistics for the months of January through March of this year 2017 and is reporting an increase in overnight, cruise and airport visitors when compared to the same period last year which had seen an unprecedented growth.

According to the release, in January, a total of 38, 531 tourists visited the country and stayed overnight while 39,221 tourists arrived in the month of February resulting in an overall increase of 2.7% compared to last year's record numbers. This marks the second year in a row that the total amount of overnight arrivals to Belize has surpassed 70,000 visits within the first two months of a specific year.

In March of 2016, there was a record number of tourist arrivals totaling over 43,000 visitors. However, this record was surpassed in March 2017, with over 44,400 tourist visitors, making this the highest number of tourist arrivals ever recorded in a single month.

When it comes to cruise arrivals, the country saw an increase of 8.7% in cruise passenger arrivals for the first three months of 2017. With an increase of 24.2% and 22.7% in January and February 2017 respectively, along with a short decline of 13.1 % in March 2017, the total number of cruise ship passengers registered in the first quarter of 2017 surpassed that of 2016, giving a positive outlook for Belize's cruise tourism for the remainder of this year.

According to BTB, these figures directly reflects the vigorous marketing and product development efforts of the Belize Tourism Board (BTB) and its Stakeholders in the tourism industry. BTB is also forecasting that these increasing trends will continue both in the overnight and cruise sectors for the remainder of 2017 and beyond.

B.T.B. Says Majority of Jewel's Overnight Visitors Coming for First Time

As reported earlier this week, tourism arrivals by overnight and cruise remain healthy, with March setting a record for overnight tourism arrivals at close to forty-five thousand. But where are they coming from; where are they going to; and are they coming back, or coming here for the first time? These are some of the questions we put to B.T.B.’s Director of Marketing and Industry Relations Karen Pike, who explained that a majority of those coming from far and near and by land and sea are stepping on the Jewel's shores for the first time.

Karen Pike, Director of Marketing and Industry Relations, B.T.B.

"Most of our overnight tourist arrivals are from the United States; we've tracked the top twenty states where they are coming from - Texas, New York, California, to name a few; then looking at where they are going, our top destinations have been San Pedro, Caye Caulker, Placencia, Cayo - that's where most of the tourist arrivals are headed, but they are going to other parts of the country as well. Next after the Americans, we have the Canadians and then the Europeans in terms of source markets where they're coming from. In terms of the numbers that we report, our marketing intelligence team track the arrivals for all arrivals that hit the shores of Belize; based on numbers from Immigration. In terms of finding out who is a first-time visitor and who's a second-time visitor, that comes from our survey that is done at the border points and at the P.G.I.A., where we are able to find out from tourists if they have visited the destination before; but in terms of what we report every month on arrivals, those are every one, first time and repeat that hit our shores."

Reporter

"So would you able to share specifically what percentage of these arrivals are first-timers per month."

Karen Pike

"The majority of our visitors are first-timers to Belize."

Reporter

"Majority is fifty plus one, so�"

Karen Pike

"It's more than that; it's a large majority; I would say over eighty percent have not been here before."

In terms of cruise ship arrivals, a dip in March balanced out bumper arrivals in January and February, as other cruise ships step into the gap left by Norwegian Cruise Lines in Belize City.

Channel 5