Between the first quarter of 2017 and the same period in 2018, the number of visitors that arrived in the country registered a slight decrease of 1.4%, but the overall expenditure made by them increased by 2.7%.
According to sector’s figures, between the first quarter of 2017 and the same period of this year the number of tourists fell from 734,000 to 723,000, and the currencies received registered a slight increase, going from $302 million to $310 million.
The president of the Panamanian Hotels Association, Armando Rodríguez, explained to Prensa.com that “ … the high season of 2018 was slightly better than last year, but he indicated that they are far from the numbers that the sector saw seven years ago, when they had 70% occupancy rates in the months of greatest activity. ‘The results of these first months indicate that the rest of the year will not be positive’.”
“For his part, Gustavo Him, administrator of the Tourism Authority, said that important markets for Panama such as Argentina and Brazil are recovering and hope that the situation improves in the coming months. He added that they are preparing a specific campaign to increase the entry of South American passengers, a region that showed a negative trend in the first quarter of the year.”
The ATP spends $20 million to get more tourists and ends up with less. ATP seems to be the Anti tourist burro of Panama designed only to steal tax payers money and spend on pure stupidity. Also interesting to note every since they passed a law against short term rentals both the number of tourists and hotel occupancy has gone down, which was very predictable as short term rentals bring tourists to a place. Talk to anyone in the tourist industry and they just shake their heads at the absolute stupidity of the ATP