{"id":32126,"date":"2021-10-12T10:46:38","date_gmt":"2021-10-12T15:46:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/panamaadvisoryinternationalgroup.com\/blog\/?p=32126"},"modified":"2021-10-12T10:46:38","modified_gmt":"2021-10-12T15:46:38","slug":"panama-spending-300-million-lofty-goals-community-centric-tourism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/panamaadvisoryinternationalgroup.com\/blog\/panama-spending-300-million-lofty-goals-community-centric-tourism\/","title":{"rendered":"Panama Is Spending $300 Million With Lofty Goals for Community-Centric Tourism"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The country’s new sustainable tourism master plan could set a precedent for the region if the government puts its money where its mouth is. But is Panama’s private sector ready to embrace sharing the tourism pie after a major downturn?<\/p>\n

Pre-pandemic, Panama was one of the strongest performing economies in the Latin America and Caribbean region, growing at an average of 4.7 percent annually. But that wasn\u2019t the case for its tourism sector, which remained stagnant in comparison to previous years, even\u00a0with a 16 percent contribution<\/a>\u00a0to the gross domestic product.<\/p>\n

That outlook was supposed to change in 2020 with the appointment of a new minister of tourism \u2014 a millennial entrepreneur with a background in finance and hospitality but no political ties \u2014 and the launch of a first-ever destination marketing organization for Panama,\u00a0PROMTUR<\/a>.\u00a0 The pandemic slashed visitor numbers in 2020 by over 70 percent as well as hit deeply on other large sectors. But that didn\u2019t stop the country from playing catch up in boosting its economy and transforming its image \u2014 through tourism.<\/p>\n

Beyond pushing for the return of visitors, the Panamanian government is in the midst of spending an ambitious $301 million\u00a0for a sustainable tourism master plan. The goal: rebuild Panama\u2019s visitor economy over five years, from 2020-2025, into one that places communities and the environment at the center of tourism\u2019s future growth and benefits.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are a country that says we have a canal, and we\u2019ve had a booming real estate industry for years and the financial services sector \u2014 tourism, it\u2019s the first time that there\u2019s a master plan and it\u2019s the first time the government, with the cabinet and president, has formally approved a master plan,\u201d said Panama\u2019s minister of tourism, Ivan Eskildsen.\u00a0\u201cSo this is the first time that tourism becomes state policy, and we\u2019re actually moving forward with a sustainable tourism master plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nature and culture-based tourism as state policy and targeting conscious travelers for it are a central part of this plan. \u201cNow we know there\u2019s an opportunity to attract this demand, to bring in dollars to the country, but at the same time preserving our nature and our culture with involvement of local communities and helping to improve the lives and well being of communities,\u201d Eskildsen told Skift.<\/p>\n

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As far as sustainability claims go, it sounds basic to declare embracing natural and cultural assets, but Panama\u2019s plan, developed with input from locally established non-governmental organizations as well as international conservation groups, has a regenerative tourism bent. It commits to diversify the industry by officially embracing community-based tourism and making 10 indigenous or Afro-Panamanian communities into tourism destinations, to start.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is new about their approach is really trying to map biodiversity assets, community and cultural and historical assets with market and interest from the market, and I think taking a holistic approach to that, and then saying \u2014 OK, what are the barriers to entry, how do we help communities, how do we help develop tourism routes and clusters and these kinds of things,\u201d said Jamie Sweeting, president of\u00a0Planeterra<\/a>. \u201cSometimes the market needs a bit of a helping hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Costa Rica is \u201cPura Vida,\u201d Panama is now \u201cVive por mas\u201d or \u201cLive for More\u201d under a new branding platform that launched this month, targeting the conscious traveler and also part of the new tourism master plan.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a radical change ahead for Panama, but it could be planting the seed for a new tourism governance model for a region where the leadership has historically excluded local communities and embraced mass tourism development at the expense of profits. Could Panama be leading the reset that\u2019s desperately needed and make tourism more equitable in the Americas?<\/p>\n

Live for More: The Conscious Traveler<\/strong><\/p>\n

Panama\u2019s new branding is relying on the promise of the conscious traveler or the \u201cviajero consciente.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo there\u2019s two pieces \u2014 there\u2019s on the marketing side we want to attract the right people with the right values, we also on the other side have the tourism authority who has a plan for developing the country in a sustainable way,\u201d said Woodrow Oldford, chief marketing officer at PROMTUR. \u201cSo they have to work hand in hand; if we\u2019re building a sustainable country and we don\u2019t brand the country in the appropriate way to attract the right people, we then mess everything up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oldford said that researching the discerning traveler led PROMTUR to find almost 600 million of them that Panama could target. Primary markets include the U.S., Canada, Costa Rica, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, and in Europe, Spain, Germany and France.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found viajeros conscientes in all of those markets,\u201d Oldford said, adding that conscious travelers are also in\u00a0 Australia, as well as Italy, Mexico, Peru, but that efforts were under way to research the latter markets.<\/p>\n

PROMTUR has gone has far as segmenting this conscious minded traveler into three tiers: the creative idealist, the history seeker and the holiday globetrotter, all of whom travel to learn and grow, or as a method of self-discovery.<\/p>\n

As for the \u201cLive for More\u201d rally cry, Oldford said, it was designed to put Panamanians first.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo one of the things that we did with the branding instead of doing branding around a visitor only, we put the tourists which is the discerning traveler and the Panamanian at the center of the brand and it had to work for the Panamanian and the visitor at the same time.\u00a0 If it didn\u2019t work for both then it was thrown out.\u201d<\/p>\n

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