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The November 3, 2008 issue of the Panama Star reports that the number of cruses visiting Panama has been steadily increasing since 2000. According to the Star, Panama has agreements with twenty cruise lines. Over forty different cruise ships are dedicated to Panama as their destination. New port facilities under construction at Colon will allow larger cruise ships to dock. One of these, the Enchantment of the Seas, is a Panama registered vessel. Colon will be its home port. Latin Americans will be able to come to Panama for a Caribbean cruise and not have to deal with US homeland security issues by going to a US port or getting a US tourist visa.

Panama Investment in Tourism

According to The Panama Star, “Copa [Airlines] with [its] Hub of the Americas has created a network of airline connections that allows the cruise passengers to fly directly to Panama to board the [Enchantment of the Seas]. It is expected that the new cruise ship program will generate at least $1.5 million per month for the country, taking into account the amount of money visitors and the crew will spend during their stay in Panama. Royal Caribbean has invested $16 million to make Panama the Home Port for “Enchantment of the Seas”, which will visit the islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao in the Caribbean. The Colon manager explained that the Tocumen airport expansion and the new highway [from] Panama [to] Colon will make it easier to transport passengers from the airport to the port.”

Latin America’s middle class is becoming more prosperous and increasingly is a market for Caribbean cruises. Panama is investing in port facilities at Colon, building of the interoceanic highway, and expanding facilities at Tocumen International Airport. All of these long term investments draw cruise business as well as other business to Panama. Increasingly Panama cruises and other tourism are broadening their base to become less reliant upon North American customers.

Panama Tourism and Panama Attractions

Tourism is a major source of revenue for Panama’s largely service based economy. Panama hopes to have attracted 1.4 million tourists by the end of 2008. Figures from the beginning of the year show an increase of 11.6 percent over 2007. Considering that tourists spend, on the average, $1,500 a person in Panama 1.4 million tourists will have added $2.1 Billion USD to Panama’s economy by the end of the year.

Panama is full of tourist attractions. Panama tourism is attracting well over a million people a year to thriving Panama City, tours of the Panama Canal, hotels in the rain forest, as well as world class sport fishing, eco tourism in Panama’s comarcas and much more.

The press is full of speculation regarding the effects of a world wide credit shortage. How will this effect Panama? Businesses in Panama and the Panama government are not passive in this regard. For one thing Panama’s banks seem to weathering the storm pretty well. Tourism related businesses in Panama are making investments to broaden their scope of customers. As business from North America decreases with a recession in the USA expect to see more tourism from Latin America and Europe.