The Republic of Panama is considered to be one of the worlds top travel destinations as of 2007. An actual real estate market has pushed tourism tremendously to its limits. However, there are some technical aspects that Panama as a new touristic country needs to work on for tourism.
As an experienced Panamanian tour operator with years of world wide reception we can say that the mayor issue in today’s Panamanian tourism is the lack of hotels and tour services. In order to process a large group or even a a possible 3 bedroom occupancy tour you would need a few weeks in advanced to reserve. This is because the lack of availability or high occupancy for Panama Hotels.
At first, I thought to my self as thought in college “fly by nights are often rejected by hotels expecting longer terms of occupancy” therefore we had some negative feelings about certain hotels and their service at that time.
After observing closer to the tourism industry we realized that what hotels were saying “no, there is no availability” was true. The importance Panama is playing now days in politics, trade and real estate investments is huge.
Some of the NGO s already based in Panama are;
These organizations are directing their international meetings in local conversion centers and high end resorts year round. Besides from them there are mayor trade shows involving real estate, construction equipment, imports / exports and banking.
This means that when larger groups want to book for a regular touristic trip to Panama its difficult as there are large corporate groups or political groups coming in these Panamanian Hotels.
The bottom line is that the mayor focus of the country is the international relations, the development and real estate investors who currently take over on 95% of the hotel occupancy year round without low seasons. This doesn’t mean that the traveler will not take a day or 2 to go on a regular city tour or historical tour. However, its just so clear that mayor tourism interests are not just to take a look around the corner.
We encourage these real estate investors to put their funds into lodging, resorts, hotels or what ever involves accommodations for these customers. There are people buying large homes and turning them into lodges in the middle of the city. Its time to do the math and invest into tourism here in the Republic of Panama.
