On October 29, 2026, the Belize Tourism Board (BTB) announced a landmark $750,000 investment to launch the Elevate Training Institute, a purpose-built hospitality education hub housed at St. John’s College (SJC) in Belize District. The long-gestating project, which BTB leadership reports has been in active planning for four years, will revitalize Stochl Hall – a campus facility that has sat vacant since 2011 – to deliver specialized, industry-aligned training for the country’s tourism workforce. The institute’s curriculum will cover high-demand hospitality competencies including professional culinary arts, hotel front office operations, certified tour guiding, customer experience excellence, and a suite of other niche hospitality specializations. To ensure the program meets global industry benchmarks, BTB has secured formal partnerships with leading international hospitality education bodies, including the American Hotel and Lodging Educational Institute and the American Culinary Federation, who will deploy certified international instructors to lead hands-on training sessions. Evan Tillett, BTB’s Director of Tourism, explained that while the agency has run ad-hoc tourism upskilling programs for years, the new brick-and-mortar campus will create a permanent, centralized base to scale these efforts and raise service standards across the entire national tourism sector. “We spent years refining our model and aligning with the right partners to deliver Belize’s first bona fide dedicated tourism training institute, a critical step to make our destination far more competitive on the global stage,” Tillett noted. For St. John’s College, the reopening of Stochl Hall marks a meaningful new chapter: the building previously served as a learning space for students who had not completed their high school credentials, and SJC President Mirtha Peralta highlighted that 15 years after its closure, the repurposed facility will open new career pathways for local learners seeking in-demand roles in Belize’s fast-growing tourism economy. The announcement of the training institute comes as Belize’s tourism leadership prepares to pursue new international partnership deals at the 2026 Caribbean Tourism Marketplace (CATM) event, positioning the country’s upgraded workforce development infrastructure as a key selling point for global travel operators.