Tourism Uptick in November Signals Recovery for Belize

There is positive news in the tourism industry. The latest statistics from the Belize Tourism Board shows the industry is rebounding following a concerning downward trend in recent months. Following an eight-point-six and five-point-one percentage decrease in overnight tourist arrivals in September and October, respectively, there was a one-point-eight percent increase in November with forty-two thousand, eight hundred and forty-one visitors coming to Belize. So, what happened? Well, the U.S. federal government shutdown two weeks before the US Thanksgiving holiday and it was perfect timing for Belize. Director of Tourism Evan Tillett says September and October are traditionally the slowest months of the year and the dip was offset by record arrivals earlier this year and Belize Hotel Association President Reynaldo Malik says early bookings already show great promise for the 2026 season.

 

Evan Tillett, Director of Tourism (File: November 27th, 2025)

“October was also a little softer than 2024. In fact, this entire year has been a very volatile year in terms of arrival numbers. You have some months that we had record breaking arrivals. If you look at. January, February, April, July, August, they’re, they all set new benchmark in terms of monthly arrivals. And you look at the months in between, you’ll see some dips. And so it’s been a very challenging year and there’s no way of getting around that. What we do, we continue to market and try to work on a, what we call a green season marketing plan. We have the Belizean Traveler marketing program that we work with to try and push. We work with the private sector to try and get deals so that we can put it out to the international markets so that we can get people in. So those are things that we do to try and mitigate the low numbers in, in, in those months. But that has been traditionally the two lowest months on, on, on the tourist arrival calendar, September and October.”

 

Reynaldo Malik, President, Belize Hotel Association (File: November 27th, 2025)

“This three and a half week period that we are in right now is where we do see, I would say upwards of about sixty percent of next year’s revenue is going to come in this one small three week window right now and then we follow up on that with a Christmas sale afterwards, etc. right and the new year. So this is the selling window right here. I can speak for my group where I work. We have seen sales on par with last year.”