Comments

• 

  SuitcaseReady March 1, 2012 at 11:44pm

  Hal, you completely missed the point of my comment and your remarks below make a lot of inaccurate assumptions. Someone in an earlier comment suggested that the Belize Tourism Board might prefer to work with bloggers. We general travel bloggers deliver a broader demographic, than say a magazine targeted to high income people only, where the average hotel reviewed is $700-1000/night.

  Sure, the Francis Ford Copolla resorts and some of the private caye resorts are in that league, but the average hotel room in Belize is not. Nor is the average visitor to Belize staying in $1000/night private caye accommodations.
  
  My suitcase is Briggs & Riley (backpacks dont work when you want to bring rum and Marie Sharps home). And, Ive been to Belize about 4x traveling extensively throughout the country (and Im coincidentally a Yucatan Peninsula DE on Tripadvisor) - how about you?

   

  Maybe you should read my site. My last blog post about Belize was about a private atoll dive resort where I stayed in June - Off the Wall. All the other guests were investment bankers, retired, or 1 man who let us know he was in the Top 10 Lawyers in the US.
• 

  Hal Peat March 1, 2012 at 6:29pm

  @SuiteCaseReady - who do you perceive as "the type of traveler that goes to Belize"?  Obviously, you have a single definition that conforms to your site but I'd point out that there are plenty of people who go there for all sorts of reasons - sorry, it's not just the $50 a night room backpacker crowd, so I hope your "suitcase" is a Gucci because most of the hotels on Ambergris Cay for instance charge a little more than that.  And that's exactly the problem that the Belize Tourism people have allowed themselves to be finagled into collaborating the wrooong way with media on - the misperception from BVK & the Holder/Kriehn crew that they should only reach out to backpackers because the higher markets and other media will come anyway.  But, maybe they won't.  We all have choices nowadays, specially the one percent. 
• 

  Darryl Musick February 29, 2012 at 5:12pm

  For those of you who haven't seen it, we're running the award winning Gina Sandoval documentary "Timmy Wheels" at The World on Wheels today. It's a short doc featuring my sometime partner at the blog, and the inspiration for it, my son Tim. Bring some popcorn and enjoy the show (by the way, he's still available for your voiceover needs): http://tinyurl.com/y5p4l34
  

  The World on Wheels

  An ongoing adventure of travel and living while using a wheelchair. Tim has been disabled from birth. Darryl is his father and caregiver who travel…
• 

  Corne Schalkwyk February 23, 2012 at 12:14pm

  Rhino Conservation and adventure tourism meet

  EcoTraining will be offering its first Rhino conservation course in April of 2012, in 2011 the company included a section on Rhinos as part of their conservation and research program in South Africa and Botswana as depicted in the photos below.

  

  The ear notching and DNA data collection was a huge success and will now form a separate training module to follow up on these magnificent endangered animals. Not only is Rhino poaching very topical at the moment, but we actually do not know a lot about these targeted animals surrounded by myth and legend. We need a deeper understanding to start making a change.

  

  The aim of the course is twofold. First, to provide an in-depth education suitable for rangers, tourists, and academics on the two African rhinos and the conservation thereof. Second, to establish and teach non-invasive methods for monitoring rhino populations

  The main method of instruction would be hands on participation in a rhino monitoring project. This would be supplemented by lectures. The goal of the monitoring project would be to establish identikits for all rhinos within a given research area. This would be accomplished by a variety of methods depending on the area, including:

  • Camera traps analysis (setting and collecting data). Tracking and trailing of Rhinos. This is used to identify the individual animals (Plaster casts of tracks)
  • Trailing by foot and by vehicle when possible to photograph for identity kits.
  • Trailing on foot to establish movement patterns, habitat selection, water sources and territories.
  • Study on foot – behavior and food/habitat selections
  • Dung analysis to determine food selection.

  Topics that will be covered during the first course will be

  • Rhinos of the world
  • Biology of rhinos
  • Evolution of Rhinocerotidae and subtaxa
  • Rhino Behavior (Black and White Rhino)
  • Poaching and anti- Poaching
  • Conservation issues
  • Conservation research and methods
  • Tracking and trailing
  • Rhino Habits and ecosystems

  Although heavy emphasis will be placed on Rhino, other aspects of savannah ecosystems will also be explored.

  For more information contact Corne Schalkwyk at marketing@ecotraining.co.za Media is welcome to contact me for information or arrangments to join the course for publication. We will also include this as part of the next SA Tourism media program in September 2012 "the green product tour".
• 

  Rachel Madison Hill February 16, 2012 at 10:22pm

  Michelle Bowers at the Belize tourism board is very responsive and sweet ..

  Contact:	Michelle Bowers Manager of Trade
  Phone:	501-227-2420
  Email:	mbowers@travelbelize.org
  Website:	www.travelbelize.org
• 

  WAVE Journey February 15, 2012 at 11:03pm

  Good luck trying to get any reply from Tourism Belize. We've been trying to collect on a free trip that we won last August. They eventually sent us the gift certificate for it, but then when we asked to book it we couldn't get a response. Now, we're on the fourth person, and still can't get an answer. Think they're just ignoring us as long as possible so that it expires and they don't need to redeem it. This is a giveaway they were doing at a tradeshow...
• 

  SuitcaseReady February 15, 2012 at 9:49pm

  As a travel blogger who loves Belize, this is good to know... could be we're just more targeted for the type of traveler who goes to Belize.
• 

  Hal Peat February 15, 2012 at 1:06am

  @Sam - I wasn't privy to the interraction between client & PR, but...my observation & experience w/BVK is that yes, they encouraged their client(s) - which include other experience I've also had with them re. the Dominican Republic - to make a strategic decision to go that route.  But since other people in other media do travel there - although not as part of a sponsored press trip - they can still claim they "assist".  Like Republicans, they'll always have deniability about what they actually do.  Personally I'm beyond caring since I go anyway, no thanks to them nor do I inform them when I cover anything in either of those destinations. 
• 

  Sam Scribe February 14, 2012 at 8:38pm

  Hal, excuse this question from a writer who's not a travel writer: Are you saying that the Belize Tourism Board favors online writers over newspaper and magazine writers? Isn't that the opposite of what other boards do? 
• 

  Hal Peat February 14, 2012 at 5:28pm

  @John - re: your Belize question - the media contact for the Belize Tourism Board for north Am. media is a firm called BVK.  However, they won't help you out with a single thing unless you're in with their circle of bloggers and beware if you ever did print.  That includes even sending you a press release, & their people never return calls.  You're just better off sidelining them & contacting directly the individual PR repping properties or activities, if you need help them message me - I have a few such.