Press Release December 18, 2014 The UDP Government is Not Serious About Tourism “Tourism is a business,” said the Director of Tourism, Karen Bevans, at the recent Annual General Meeting of the BTIA. But the steady meltdown at the Belize Tourism Board (BTB) belies this assertion. The UDP Government unceremoniously kicked out Laura Esquivel, who, at least, had a tourism background and replaced her with their very loyal BTL stalwart, Karen Bevans – someone totally green to tourism. In the 6 years of the UDP Government, tourism has not improved for the hoteliers, the tour operators, the guides, the artisans nor the tourism destinations. With the BTB overstaffed with so many business-minded UDP professionals, how is it that they would miss a most basic but important procedure for the hiring of any senior Director position: doing due diligence. It is grossly embarrassing for Belize that on one day a press release is issued by the Director of Tourism naming Clive Myers as the BTB’s dynamic, new Director of Marketing and less than 3 days later, he resigns because he was exposed as having misrepresented his credentials on his resume. Since 2011, the UDP has seen two new Directors of Tourism come and go, two Directors of Marketing come and go, one person appointed as the Director of Marketing on the basis of misrepresentation as to his credentials, and now: having no Director of Marketing. To make tourism statistics look good, the BTB regularly resorts to including the cruise ship visitors because, without that, they struggle to talk about what they have done for the overnight sector - the bedrock of the industry. The PUP demands that the Government of Belize get serious about tourism, find a solution to the cruise ship port crisis and take immediate measures to stabilize the management of marketing of the overnight sector.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 20:55:44 +0000
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