7 News Belize

BHA Asks For August Airport Re-Opening
posted (June 17, 2020)
Two weeks ago we told you about the BTIA's support seeking poll for the re-opening of the PGIA. It got them nowhere in terms of a consensus and in fact, served drive a deep rift in the organization - with many big members resigning.

Tonight, we have the results of a new but similar poll, this one from the Belize Hotel Association. And over the weekend they asked their 69 members and an additional 71 hotels whether the PGIA should be re-opened provided that a specific set of protocols and policies can be obtained and put in place.

Their results were overwhelmingly positive with 97% of respondents supporting an August 1st reopening with the provisions that rapid testing be available and protocols in place. This evening BHA President Ted Tejada advocated for that re-opening but with a limited number of flights.

Ted Tejada- President, BHA
"These 140 hotels that we pulled on this survey produced 80% of the entire revenue for accomodations in the country of Belize. So, we are looking at a very important group of hotels that have 80% of the stake of the revenue that the entire country in terms of hotel revenue is produced."

Reporter
"Now sir, the reopening of the airport on August 1st is predicated on rapid tests. What will the hotels say if on August 1st those rapid tests are not available."

Ted Tejada
"You know, we have been in contact with the airport where they are doing, at this moment they are doing great things in order to get the rapid tests going. We do want the economy to open. The hotels, as you saw on the survey, 97% of them stipulated that yes. 65% that voted want the hotels or the airports to open with the condition that the rapid test is there. We don't just want to open the hotels and the economy without having that rapid test. So, we believe and we know that the government is making every effort at this moment to open it. and to be honest, when we open we are looking at 15 flights per week. You have to understand that it is not only the country of Belize that will say let's open the economy and everyone is going to be coming. The airlines have a say in this. So, American Airlines has stipulated that they will only be allowing 1 flight per day from Maiami, Delta is only going to be doing 3 flights from the US and Houston will have 5 flights from United. At one time we used to have 20 flights on a given Saturday for one Saturday. We are looking at 15 flights for the entire week. We believe that is the way to start. To start with a limited amount of flights. Start doing the testings, start operating the hotels, and start putting all the protocols in place to see that we are doing the right thing before the massive tourism that we had in the past starts again. You only want to open the international airport with limited flights because we need a couple of months for us to do the proper training and testing before we do the full fledged opening. That is why our recommendation is, just open the international airport and yes, limiting the spots, Brazil for example, where there is a high cluster of cases. So, these countries you know that most likely those cases will be imported if they are coming from there. Yes, you mentioned Texas and we were very transparent on the survey. We wanted to make sure that we mentioned what our members had put on the survey."

Additional questions were asked to respondents the results of which confirmed that 67% of them feel that rapid testing should be conducted on arrival at the PGIA, 61% feel that there should be restrictions on travelers from certain states countries, and 77% confirmed that without that August 1st reopening they'll have to lay off even more of their employees. You can see the full release on our facebook page.

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