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Blades gives his report on the state of Panamanian tourism

by Eric Jackson

Rubén Blades, high-profile public figure that he may be, doesn't really appear before many local audiences in his role as tourism minister. One of the exceptions, however, is that he speaks every year to the American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM) tourism forum. He did so again at this year's event, which was held on September 21 at the Hotel Miramar, and announced that he's going to vary his practices by meeting with every group or business directly involved with tourism in Panama.

Blades cited statistics from the Comptroller General, which he noted can be difficult to interpret from the tourism point of view but are at least uniformly collected over the years. (So who's a "tourist?" Do business travelers, people making stopovers at Tocumen en route to other places, "residential tourists" or yachties count --- and are they counted? Those are some of the difficulties.) In any case, he said that by the official measures and others national economic activity, including tourism, is growing. He cited some 1.07 million foreign visitors to Panama in all of 2005, and more than 600,000 in the first six months of this year, projecting a 13.3 percent rise for all of 2006. When the money that visitors spend is factored in, the income they generate is rising even more steeply, about 17.5 percent. Hotel room occupancy is also up, he said, from 45 to 54 percent.

Blades defended the island and coastal development law, and on that and other points his presentation could be spun in different ways by people with different perspectives. Will the new law "make possible tourism investment on islands and beaches," or is it a matter of these natural places that used to belong to the public being appropriated by private companies?

Similarly, is the five-year tourism promotion contract that he says is in the works a sensible step toward government efficiency, or merely a Torrijos administration power grab that controls contracts that last beyond its term in office?

Or what about his insistence that "once we have what we need in a province, we shouldn't go on repeating it" --- is that common sense, or just another way of saying that those who have enough money and the right connections to get concessions now will be given enduring monopolies?

And what about the new tourism law that he says is in the works? "All businesses related to tourism will have to register and be regulated," he told the forum. So does that mean more bureaucracy and opportunities for corruption, or a practical way to weed out the hustlers and maintain some quality standards?

Blades announced several new tourism initiatives and the revival of some old ones. The man who designed Disneyland will be coming back to resume work on a 1997 proposal for Colon that went nowhere. The San Carlos tourist center that has been vacant for years will be fixed up and reopened. Travel agencies and tourism transportation will be regulated by new laws. IPAT will be transformed into a tourism authority and move its headquarters out of the ATLAPA convention center. People who want to invest in Panamanian tourism will be able to take care of all the paperwork at just one government office instead of several.

It all adds up, Blades argued, to a program for "the dispersal of opportunities." And if he really meant it, then some people in the room would have been glad to hear it, and some would have been disappointed.

Also in this section:
Rubén Blades assesses national tourism effort
Odebrecht: company whose corruption brought down a Brazilian president replacing PYCSA
ACP in denial as Parson Brinckerhoff's Big Dig woes grow
USAID supports forest products certification
Business & Economy Briefs