Job Fair - March 18, 2013

Warm Regards from Sunny Belize!

Just wanted to update all owners on progress with the hiring cycle. We had posted an ad in the Placencia Breeze in order to try to fill our buckets with applicants, hoping to find a few acceptable candidates. I am pleased to say that we did far better than that.  Although we really did not know what to expect when we advertised the job fair in the local paper, but we certainly did not count on this level of  response.

We opened the doors at 8 AM to over 3 dozen applicants for jobs ranging from bus and wait staff for the restaurant to front desk and secretarial. We ran out of forms long before lunchtime. Not only did a great many turn out, but many people that I would be pleased to hire showed up. It seems that the timing was good: since most of the tourist season locally is over, some staffers at other establishments were either available or thought that they might be soon. Still others were taking this end-of-season cycle to consider other options. There were entrepreneurial types that were looking for a steady check to make their cash flow more stable. And lastly, there were a great many Belizeans out of work, but qualified and eager.

The whole experience was very encouraging. What warts reveal themselves should these people come aboard no one knows, but if even 50% of those that we identified as worth hiring and/or training came through, we still had many left in the file drawer for future reference. Although we know that hiring locally can be a tricky proposition, I think that we all left the hall feeling better about the local prospects.

Construction-schedule permitting, we are trying for a May opening, and we let all applicants know that call-backs might not begin until then. Special thanks go to Kimberley Stephens for her gift of conversation and organization. Further  special thanks go to Chef Juan Gil who seems to know everyone locally, and was a completely selfless resource regarding the Food & Beverage side of the house, and the Fish Story Grille.

Travel Data

Some of you had asked for more data regarding travel trends in Belize. The Belize Tourism Board, a government agency that oversees tourism and collects and tracks room taxes, also compiles the official statistics that are used by all branches of government. I am providing a link below to their statistics page, and will update this with a more specific link that addresses the 2013 data as soon as that becomes available. For now, here is the statistics link:

BTB Stats on Belize:

There is much there to be encouraged about, particularly when you look at the records set in 2012. I feel pretty certain after meeting with representatives from that organization that 2013 may improve on those figures as well. Stay tuned, and as we come across more data we will share it with you.

Warm Regards, West Tucker