BELMOPAN, Belize (CMC) —Belize tourism officials say that for the past 15 consecutive months the industry has been experiencing “record-breaking increases” in overnight arrivals monthly.

The Belize Tourism Board (BTB) said that the sector had been recording double-digit increases of as much as 33 per cent growth.

“We are now nine months through 2016 and the tourism arrival figures continue to show this upward trend, closing off this third quarter with an incredible 26.9 per cent increase for the month September 2016 over September 2015.

“Overall, the first nine months of 2016 recorded a total of 293,622 overnight arrivals, a 16.4 per cent increase over the same nine months of 2015, which had 252,329 overnight arrivals.”

The BTB said that cruise arrivals resulted in 54,569 passengers for September 2016, representing a 20.6 per cent increase over September 2015.

It said that overall, cruise passenger arrivals recorded a moderate 1.3 per cent increase for the first nine months of 2016, despite having 12 fewer cruise vessels arriving in Belize, inclusive of cruise calls cancelled due to Hurricane Earl.

The BTB said that the United States continues to be the country’s largest market with 67.4 per cent of the market share, followed by Europe and Canada, respectively.

“We look forward to more increases for the remainder of 2016, especially as we welcome WestJet Airlines on October 29th with direct flights between Toronto and Belize,” the BTB said without indicating a monetary value for the increase in tourist arrivals over the past months.