At every hotel, restaurant, or adventure park, there is a woman somewhere, behind the scenes, ensuring that every guest is fully satisfied. And today, many of those women - the backbone of Belize's ever-growing tourism industry - were honored by the BTB. Today's networking event was aimed at connecting the women of tourism and inspiring them with stories of some of the pioneers. The Media and Communication Specialist spoke more about one such woman.

Felicia Pelayo, Media & Communication Specialist, BTB
"For today we're hosting a special networking event dedicated to those women also where we wanted to have them here in person share their stories, identify possible collaborations, networking opportunities, so we're going to be recognizing them today, we're also going to be having a special panel discussion, we're calling it a power panel where we have three of those nominees, Ms Timotea Mesh, Megs Yearwood, Rebecca Rath, representing different areas of the tourism industry, talk about their experiences, and then we'll also open the floor for other women to also share their experiences as well."

"For one of our panelists, Ms Timotea Mesh, she is the founder of the San Antonio Women's Cooperative and very much we see how culture is becoming a huge part of the tourism product in Belize and so for her story, it is a cooperative that empowers women and creates opportunities in her community while also keeping their Maya heritage alive."

And another inspiring story was that of Megs Yearwood, who was representing Barefoot Services. What started off as Placencia's first car rental - before there was even a paved road - has transformed into a full travel service business. She explained that though she had a lot of help from women along the way, there are still a lot of challenges for them in this industry.

Megs Yearwood, Barefoot Services
"I worked at one hotel in Placencia and I realized I could make a living here in Placencia and meeting a superior that encouraged me to learn and apply myself, I think that also helped, so throughout my career I've always had women in my corner. My first website, I built in my apartment with a woman so I didn't really have a plan but over the years I think what helps us is that we're always seeing opportunities and we apply ourselves to fill those gaps."

"I definitely feel like it has been more challenging being a woman, I'm a mom of two girls, but I'm happy that I have two girls because I have some gas behind me with the experiences that I've had to prepare them to thrive in place like Belize but I will not ever forget the partnership that I've had, I have a husband, I've been married for a very long time and the support of a partner that encourages and babysits and preps the meals, that goes a long way but as a woman, I think that men don't get the challenges that we have, for example, many people see me as too strict or serious or abrasive, but to be taken serious, I have to be firm, but they interpret it as aggressive or negative but if a man was doing business as usual, he's just seen as a man."