New Routes

Our Carnival Road March took a new route this year. Moving from the busy veins of inner Belize City, the new route ran along the sea-wall extending from the Memorial Park, the full length of Princess Margaret Drive, and all the way down to the Marion Jones Sporting Complex. It was a big change and the changes the route made to the feel of the Road March were equally as big. There were no bridges to cross over, no difficult turns for heavy trucks to make, no clogging up of main streets and accesses, and on one side of the Carnival, there was the sea. Everything feels better when it’s closer to the sea. The breeze carried the sound, and the feeling was as luminous as the costumes. The new route along the sea improved safety and scenery. New routes often do that- just ask the Belize Tourism Board (BTB).

While the big Carnival Road March has changed its route around the City twice in the last few years, the BTB has added new routes to get to the City. Every year, plenty of Belizeans within the Diaspora make it home for the Road March and other September Celebrations. Large pockets of Belizeans are spread across the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. These days, they and other visitors have more direct flight routes into Belize than ever before. Securing international flight routes is not as easy as picking a new City route for the Carnival but it has a similar re-newing effect. We may not remember now, but Belize’s airlift capacity had to be rebuilt from scratch after the catastrophic 2020 global pandemic shutdown.  Flight in and out of the country had completely stopped and getting airlines to come back has been a delicate balance of relationships and cooperation between cities, businesses, airlines, and consumers. Like the Road March, sometimes it takes a couple of tries, but the effort is well worth it if the result is that more people will come. The Minister of Tourism and Diaspora Relations, Hon. Anthony Mahler, and his team at the BTB continue to add new direct flights coming into the Phillip Goldson International Airport (PGIA). At least eighty percent of visitors to Belize travel by air and pass through the PGIA. In June this year, the BTB announced a new seasonal non-stop flight route between San Francisco International Airport and the PGIA. In February, Copa Airlines improved their nonstop service from Panama, making it easier for Latin Americans to travel to Belize. Let’s not forget that in 2023, at the first Belize Airline Development Conference under the theme “Connecting Belize to the World”, the main objective was to increase flight routes and air traffic into Belize.  As it stands, or as it flies, Belize is better connected now than ever before. We have 11 carriers, coming from seven countries and 21 cities and counting. Each year, Belizeans continue to find new international flight routes that bring them home. It does not hurt that other visitors benefit as well, and our tourism industry continues to grow as a direct result of our expanding airlift capacity.

The new Road March route felt like it made the experience wider and easier.  All of the new international flight routes added to Belize’s airlift ledger also open things up for our Belizean Diaspora, international travellers, and the development of our tourism industry. We must not underestimate the benefit of a new route—on road or in flight.

Chat again later.

Jasmine Anderson

For the Belize Tourism Board