If we hear any more about what a strong and unfaltering foreign exchange earner tourism is - we'll have to add a verse about it to the national anthem.

But, how much of that money from online booking for example- actually gets banked in Belize? The dirty little secret of the tourism sector is that much of the money is earned and banked abroad.

But, the governor of the CentralBank says it does make its way here one way or the other:

Jules Vasquez:
"We, we understand that a large part of tourism revenues are not banked in Belize. We know this it has been a chronic problem for decades. If you even, if you see it as a problem."

"But is the figure of, tourism revenue intrinsically, skewed because so much - you understand how it works far better than I so much of the reservations are booked online and they are banked in US accounts that never make it onshore."

"Has anyone been able to calculate a percentage of how much of"

"these tourism related expenditure is unbanked in Belize?"

Kareem Michael, Governor - Central Bank
"I think we have discussed this, at least at the research level, several times."

"But from from a macro perspective, when we compile the balance of payments, everything should add up, right?"

"Because there's a, there's a, there's an errors line at the bottom, which has to be within certain limits. But all that information, that feeds into our balance of payments, including those tourism figures, helps to explain how we are paying for, for, for example, a huge merchandise trade deficit."

"Even if 45% of that is kept outside, or maybe 70% of it is kept outside, in one way or the other, it is used to pay for the same imports that any hotel may need for renovations and all of that. And that is reflected in our merchandise trade deficit, because it's imports."

Jules Vasquez:
"But you're not taking into account the black market."

Kareem Michael, Governor - Central Bank
"Oh, ay man, noh introduce that to me, I noh measure anything that I can't see! (Laughs)"