Ministry of Tourism & Civil Aviation Meets With Key Airline Carriers.

Improving and expanding airlift from all markets is of great importance to the tourism industry and in March, encouraging meetings were held with WestJet Airlines of Canada and American Airlines.

The Minister of Tourism & Civil Aviation, Hon. Manuel Heredia, Jr., the Chief Executive Officer of the Ministry of Tourism, Mr. Michael Singh and Mr. Steve Schulte of the Aviation Committee, met with Dr. Hugh Dunleavy, Executive Vice President and other representatives of WestJet Airlines on March 11th, 2009 in Calgary, Canada, to discuss the merits of Belize as a destination stop for WestJet.

WestJet Airlines is Canada's leading low-cost airline operating Boeing 737 aircrafts, flying into most major cities in Canada and serving destinations in the U.S., Mexico, and the Caribbean. The company has over 6,000 employees and market capitalization of $1.2 billion USD . During the meeting, Dr. Hugh Dunleavy, Executive Vice President of WestJet, agreed to mobilize an evaluation team to Belize with the intention of appraising the market for service here by this winter. The team is expected to arrive in Belize before the beginning of May.

The Belize delegation also had the opportunity to meet with representatives from American Airlines at their headquarters in Dallas, Texas on March 13th, 2009.  The objective of the meeting was to discuss opportunities for revenue balancing to achieve better load factors for Belize.

American Airlines representatives included - Scott Snedaker from AAvacations.com, the American Airlines wholesale group which packages hotels, airfares, tours, ground transportation, and local flights and from AA.com, Linda Carlson who works on advertising for the airline.

American Airlines, Inc. is the world's second largest airline by capacity, contributing more than $150 billion per year to the US economy. American Airlines currently serves over 250 cities in 40 different countries with more than 3,400 daily flights.

Suggested programs for implementation included:

• Offering last minute specials to Belize in line with regional programs to similar markets;
• Establishing a program for frequent visitors to Belize to encourage multiple visits in a year, particularly to target condominium owners and loyal Belize travelers;
• Establishing mid-week specials to take advantage of split itineraries and low load factors on Tuesday and Wednesday flights;
• Implementing measures to offset the local outbound travel going via Cancun.

It is envisioned that these initiatives, once implemented will help to increase visitors to Belize and build the future of Belize's Tourism Industry.