Panama´s Tourism Churned Out $805 Million in 2003

Panama’s leisure industry generated $805 million worth of revenues in 2003, up an eye-popping 126 percent gain from 2002, the Panamanian Tourism Institute (IPAT) informed today.

The report indicates that the nation’s travel sector scored a double-digit percentage in the number of foreign arrivals compared to the year before for a grand total of 885,148 travelers. The industry’s cash flow was way above revenues raked in by the Colon Free Trade Zone (Atlantic coast) that wrapped last year’s operations with $487.7 million in profits.

The Tocumen International Airport in Panama City remained the country’s main port of entry with over half the amount of incoming travelers (51.3 percent).

The seaports of Balboa in the Pacific coast and Cristobal in the Atlantic combined for a 36 percent slice of all visiting trippers. Paso Canoas on the Costa Rican border with 7.7 percent and other ports that tallied a combined 5 percent were last year’s also-rans.

Little more than 119,000 American tourists, 90,159 Colombian travelers and 20,771 trekkers from Costa Rica entered Panama through the Tocumen air terminal.

Panama is running an international promotional campaign aimed at luring visitors from America and Europe, an effort that paid off with roughly 10,000 Spanish vacationers and over 7,000 from Italy in 2003.

During last year’s celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Panamanian Republic, hotel occupancy rates averaged 44 percent.

IPAT officials believe that little more than a million tourists will visit Panama in the course of 2004 with spending totaling some $843.8 million.