It Never Stops!
S
ummer 2023 is practically “finito”. School children are sneaking in their last days of travel, junk food, excessive tablet time, swimming, and late nights giggling. Parents are getting uniforms, stationaries, tiny hair clips, new school shoes, and cute backpacks that will make their own statement on the first day back. The wonder for a lot of teachers, when getting back to the classroom, is “did they learn anything during the summer?” Many teachers have finished their summer workshops, are discussing their course outlines, writing their lesson plans, and taking a first look at their class lists. The end of the summer break is arguably more fun than the beginning of it because most students will have summer stories to tell when school reopens. Summer stories are important because they are often packed with personal experiences of physical or emotional growth, of human connection, family fun, and community consciousness. They are packed with stories of change. Children do their most growing up during summers because they experience so much newness during those two sweet months of down time. Learning never stops. The tourism industry is similar in that industry businesses and workers also slow down during the summer months. Perhaps, more by chance than by choice because the tourism slow-season drags on through August and much of September. But, like school students, those in the tourism industry get some down time before getting back to the high-season. While summer is not a formal break for them, workers get to look back at the previous year, tell stories, have their own new experiences, and get all the excited about the coming high-season. School months and high-seasons are important but so are the pauses between them. A pause in routine does not mean a pause in learning.
Arguably, the longest pause, #summerbreak, that global tourism has ever had was most of 2020 and 2021. The non-traveling stories from the pandemic era are still epic and other worldly. However, tourism is back in session and the 2023 is showing positive trends and marks are looking good. According to the United Nation World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) international tourism arrivals could reach 80% – 95% of pre-pandemic levels with all regions bouncing back. The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTCC) agrees that the Travel & Tourism sector is closing in on its 2019 peak and job level. If tourism trends were school subjects, then this year the subjects include: hibernation holidays, jetlag-free jaunts, biodiversity breaks, sleep pods, and slow travel visibility. The Belize Tourism Board (BTB) host yearly forums, events, and conferences that present like classrooms and places for tourism workers to learn, to expand, and to explore new personal and business potentials. Its annual Digital Marketing Summit happening on the 25th of this month is the perfect place for on-the-job students of tourism to catch up on digital learning, AI in tourism, content marketing, social-media workshops and more. The two years of official tourism down time thought the world and tourism a lot about itself.
School children are already heading back to their classrooms to start their new year of learning. For the fact that learning never stops, breaks serve their purpose, and that we should all remain students of our crafts, we highlight the“schoolisms” in our tourism. Learning is acquired through study or experience and it is a process that leads to change. High-season or slow season, summer break or school-time, learning and changing must never stop!
See you next week.
The Belize Tourism Board