by Brian Major
Last updated: 1:25 PM ET, Mon February 3, 2025
Belize reached milestone territory in 2024 with a whopping
21 percent year-over-year increase in overnight, land-based visitors. Last year’s
visitor total also represents an increase over pre-pandemic arrival numbers for
the country.
According to “preliminary figures” reported in late January
by the Belize Tourism Board (BTB), Belize hosted 562,405 overnight visitors in
2024, representing increases of 21 percent over 2023 and 11.8 percent compared with
2019.
Record arrivals were achieved in 11 of the year’s 12 months
compared to 2019, said BTB officials, with March emerging as Belize’s peak land arrivals month with 69,202 visitors.
Prospects for 2025 are “even more promising” said BTB
officials, as the country has embarked on a $250 million expansion of Philip
Goldson International Airport (PGIA), with the goal of renovating the outdated
facility to accommodate more passengers and increase flight operations.
The project will bring upgrades including an expanded apron
and new taxiway designed to enable the accommodation of more aircraft, plus an enlarged
terminal building and new jet bridges and shopping options, said Kal Habet, chairman
of PIGA’s Aero Dispatch Services, in a local news report.
Belize is presently served from the U.S. by flights from
Miami and Dallas aboard American Airlines, via Houston with United Airlines, from
Atlanta with Delta Air Lines and from New York on JetBlue Airways, United Airlines
and Delta Air Lines.
Belize’s success attracting land-based visitors in 2024 was
not matched in the cruise sector. The nation hosted 764,993 cruise ships
visitors through November of last year according to BTB data, representing a
1.6 percent decline from the 777,626 cruise passengers hosted during the same
period in 2023.
Belize’s cruise tourism sector has recovered 73.1 percent
of the arrivals the destination reported in 2019, according to BTB data.
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