Press Release – Belize Tourism Board – May 13, 2013 –
There is fantastic news to report in the Tourism travel industry. Hot on the heels of the release of record breaking tourist arrivals in the first quarter of 2013, new flights and cruise calls to Belize were announced for the final quarter of the year.
Starting in November, Delta Airlines will be adding another Saturday flight from Atlanta to Belize. Delta currently deploys seven flights a week (one flight per day) to Belize, increasing its total number of flights to eight per week (twice on Saturdays). This is an additional 596 seats per month, and will be a permanent addition to Delta’s schedule to Belize. In addition, American Airlines will be increasing its Dallas to Belize flights from three weekly flights to seven flights per week (one flight daily), providing a total of six hundred additional seats in the month of October. BTB’s Director of Marketing and Industry Relations, Alyssa Carnegie, commented, “This is fantastic news. The Tourism Industry is doing so well that even the airlines have seen a need to increase flights, and these flights are being increased during a time that was generally considered to be a slow time for travelling by air. It shows amazing growth and more opportunities for the industry and Belize.”
As the Ministry of Tourism & Culture and the Belize Tourism Board continue to invest efforts to increase cruise arrivals for Belize, the Royal Caribbean International announced that not only have they renovated their ‘Navigator of the Seas’ to include unique features such as a Flow Rider Surf Simulator and the First-Ever Virtual Balcony, but will also deploy the Navigator of the Seas year round out of Galveston, Texas, starting in Winter 2013. As a result, Belize will receive a total of thirty cruise calls during 2014. For the past two years, Belize has not had more than 10 calls per year from ‘Navigator of the Seas’; therefore this news will result in a 200% increase for this cruise ship. It is expected that this increase in cruise calls will bring over ninety thousand cruise visitors to Belize.
