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Salomón Shamah has certain things in common with his predecessor, Rubén Blades. Like Blades and a number of other predecessors, he comes to lead the government's tourism promotion effort without any background in the tourism industry. (Shamah comes from the world of advertising and public relations, while Blades was an entertainer educated in law.) Shamah also has been given a seat and voice at the president's Cabinet meetings, but like his predecessor who had those things, has no vote in the Cabinet Council. (The Tourism Authority of Panama --- ATP --- like the IPAT tourism institute that preceded it, is an important governmental entity that's autonomous from the ministries, but it's not a ministry as such and the constitution restricts full Cabinet membership to the heads of ministries. Moreover, as Shamah is a naturalized Panamanian, another quirk in the constitution that Panama inherited from the dictatorship, the one that requires ministers to have been born Panamanian, would also exclude him from Cabinet membership.)

The man's new to his post, and in his first public speech as ATP director, to the American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM) annual tourism forum on September 10, he was candid about that. For the first part of his allotted time he had a subordinate read a Powerpoint set of talking points about the ATP's structure, regional subdivisions and strategies to promote tourism which, with a single exception, contained little that was new or very interesting to someone who has attended these forums or followed the ATP's evolution. Shamah acknowledged that his background is publicity rather than tourism, and that he's learning on the job.

"Powerpoints make it look like we live in a perfect world," Shamah said, "but we don't live in a perfect world." For starters, he pointed out, his job is to promote tourism in a country where some 40 percent of the people live in poverty.

On the other hand, as an accomplished publicist --- the man behind a major part of President Martinelli's brilliant election campaign --- and as an apparently well read person, Shamah recognizes that he has something special to sell. He digressed into Panama's natural history, noting how the closure of the isthmus some 3.5 million years ago not only created a land bridge over which the species of North and South America migrated and radically altered the currents and salinity of the world's oceans, but in the end changed the global climate, drying the homeland of our pre-human ancestors. "It made apes in Africa come down from the trees" and take that long walk to humanity, he pointed out.

"We are a commercial brand," the ATP director explained about Panama as a tourism destination. Like potato chips or presidential candidates, the veteran advertiser sees a need to "develop this brand."

Shamah noted that some 35 percent of Panama consists of protected natural areas, and argued that the country needs to both provide better access to these places and to promote them in different places. "We have to build infrastructure, not only along the Caribbean but also in many places along the Pacific, so that people can visit there." President Martinelli has suggested new roads on the Atlantic Side, one connecting Bocas del Toro and Colon provinces and another, about which the government has since backtracked, joining Colon province to Colombia.

The ATP director added to the previous presentation, which posited the encouragement of air connections between Panama and Europe by way of Cuba and Mexico as one of the institution's goals. "We have to surprise other airlines with what Panama has to offer," Shamah said. Panama has a growing Russian community, Aeroflot's hub in the Americas is Havana, and it would make sense as an expression of Russian pride and sovereignty for its citizens to have an easier time making their air connections with Latin America's principal air hub, Panama, without them having to deal with US visas or US Homeland Security. Those same sorts of considerations have been driving Panama's rise as a shopping destination for wealthy Latin Americans at the expense of Miami and New York, and the increase in direct flights between here and cities in Europe.

Shamah called for infrastructure improvements in the Casco Viejo. "We have to turn it into an ideal place to come and go, a world class cultural center." Variations of this goal have been stated by the last several administrations, with mixed results and generally slow overall movement in that direction. Ideological considerations about private property and regulations affecting it, subsidies, eminent domain and the extent and form of the government's cultural policy have yet to play themselves out in this conservative, business-oriented administration and the Casco Viejo is likely to be the showcase for all of these things when they do.

One difference between Rubén Blades and Salomón Shamah is their availability for questions at the AMCHAM forums. Blades would give lively, wide-ranging and informative talks but then leave before the question and answer sessions. Shamah also had to leave early, but the meeting agenda was altered a bit so that he could answer a few screened written questions from audience members.

The first of these questions was about Law 23, the beach and island property law passed in the waning days of the Torrijos administration. All agree that the law would allow people who own rights of possession of land on islands or on beaches to obtain titles. But that's not all the law would do, and overlaid upon the specific provisions of the law were the attitudes and practices of the Torrijos administration, which included disrespect for collectively held real estate rights and rampant land grabs by the wealthy and politically connected at the expense of long-time coastal and island residents. Minister of Economy and Finance Alberto Vallarino, who parlayed inherited affluence into one of Panama's huge fortunes in the banking industry and now has major investments in hotels, resorts and oceanside real estate, objected to Law 23 for other reasons --- he doesn't think that major resort developers ought to be getting choice government-owned beach front or island land for $50 to $150 per hectare when a more businesslike management of public assets would bring in far more money. Vallarino has backed a legal challenge to the law and blocked the issuance of implementing regulations. But those objections notwithstanding, there is no substantial opposition to the notion that people who own legitimate possessory rights to their homes, farms or businesses ought to be able to perfect these rights with land titles. President Martinelli has stated that his policy is that during his administration a land title will be issued for every property held by right of possession.

"Possessory rights have the same force as property titles," Shamah opined. He said that he supports possessory rights, not just those that have been purchased but those held by squatters' rights. He noted that, while titles are required to use real estate for loan collateral here, in Argentina people can get credit using rights of possession land. He said that he believes that people holding land by right of possession should be able to get titles to their property.

"I don't think that the state should be owner of any property," Shamah declared, and if people care to rip what could be a sweeping and startling declaration out of its proper context they probably will. It's not that the rookie public servant wants to privatize the public parks and presidential palace, but that as far as he's concerned a homeowner with right of possession to his or her land, not the Panamanian government, is the rightful owner of that bit of real estate.

There was a question about the difficulty, particularly in the Interior, in finding workers who are well prepared to offer the level of services that tourists expect and demand. Shamah noted that the complaints are about hotels and restaurants, but didn't think that it's necessarily a difficult problem. "Panama is a service economy," he noted. "Nobody complains about our bank services or port services," he claimed. He doesn't think that providing good service in a hotel or restaurant requires a particularly brilliant mind.

Another question, tangentially related to the service issue, was in the form of a complaint that the explanations of the displays at the Interoceanic Canal Museum were all in Spanish only, with no English translation. Although the museum is mostly outside of his bailiwick, Shamah addressed the languages issue. "We need not only people who are bilingual in English, we also need people who speak Portuguese, French, Dutch and other languages," he opined. He also said that the websites promoting Panamanian tourism need to move beyond just Spanish and English, particularly into Portuguese and French.

(Much of the last administration, and a tiny part of this year's AMCHAM forum, involved arguments about just who is a "tourist." Shamah's talk, and the ATP presentation that preceded it, didn't mention the topic but it was nevertheless implicitly present. Who's a tourist? If one counts the numbers of people entering Panama under the classification of "tourist," mostly one is counting Latin Americans and a large percentage of these are coming on business trips or for reasons other than enjoying the natural attractions or cultural events. Foreigners who live here for as long as a tourist visa allows, leave for a few days and then come back to resume their de facto residence in Panama are also counted as "tourists." As shown by the ATP, the numbers don't particularly reflect what many people think of when the concept of "tourist" comes to mind. The opportunities for semantic arguments are almost endless. But as we see in the ATP's tacit recognition of Brazil's growing importance as Latin America's principal political and economic power by way of Shamah's emphasis on Portuguese, the question still affects the formulation of public policies.)

Shamah was asked about the ATLAPA convention center. What he had to say was similar to what Rubén Blades had to say five years ago, except that in the last administration the predecessor of the ATP, the Panamanian Tourism Institute (IPAT), managed to finally move their offices out of ATLAPA. "The ATLAPA convention center has never generated a profit," Shamah complained. "Ninety percent of the events at ATLAPA don't attract a single tourist." He wants to sell a concession to a private party to administer ATLAPA, like several of his predecessors have. The problem has been that over many years potential investors have looked at it and found that the main problem with the center is not mismanagement and that its privatization still would not make it profitable. In any case, for the time being ATLAPA is in the ATP's hands and Shamah offered that anyone staging an event here who can show that 400 hotel rooms were booked because of the event can get the use of the facility rent-free.

This reporter's question, as is always the case at AMCHAM tourism forums, was one of those screened out at the question and answer period. It was about a resolution that the ATP issued in August which has since been rescinded.

Citing the 2008 law by which IPAT became the ATP, the 1960 law which established the 10 percent hotel room tax upon which the ATP depends, the 1976 law which defines the tourist lodging business and its 1977 regulations, and the 1973 and 2002 laws on the "horizontal property regime" --- rules for multi-story condominiums --- Shamah noted that:

The resolution noted that the practices are "outside the provisions of the law" and "considerably affect the well being of national tourism development and constitute unfair competition against the companies that provide public accommodations services in compliance with national laws and with respect to payment of national and municipal fees and taxes." It resolved to:

A couple of individuals in the American community claimed that the resolution --- Resolution 52/09 of August 13, 2009, published in the Gaceta Oficial on September 7 --- created new regulations that infringe on the rights of property owners. When this reporter pointed out in email talk groups that the resolution created no new regulations --- although it seemed that the called-for consultations with other governmental bodies were aimed toward new rules --- these individuals could not point out any new regulation, but nevertheless responded that:

and

(Most readers of The Panama News are at least partly bilingual, and those who aren't can use one of the computer translation programs available online to get a gist of what the resolution in question actually said. But we are dealing here with the petty motives of someone who is not licensed to practice law in Panama, doesn't speak good Spanish and poses as an expert on Panamanian laws; and with a notorious purveyor of disinformation and thief of other people's copyrighted labor.)

What a public document says, of course, is not a matter of opinion but of fact. Any identification of a public document that the Martinelli administration produces with this reporter's opinion and further characterization of it as coming from a "mind set extremely critical of people who own private property" is a rather odd way of looking at Panama's conservative new administration.

So why the rescission, and will this issue come back?

First, consider the form of Mr. Shamah's first major act in office. He says that he's going to enforce the existing law. He says he's going to do this because of information he has received from industry groups, but mentions no consultations with anyone else. He says he's going to bring this up with other departments of the government. All this is quite unusual. The normal procedure is that a person in Shamah's position listens to what one interested group has to say, then consults with others affected by the situation, then confers and comes to understandings with other parts of the government with overlapping jurisdictions, and only then are resolutions passed and published in the Gaceta Oficial. None of this was done here.

Second, consider the cost of the ATP going around and finding every condo owner who is renting out his or her apartment and trying to figure out the terms of the transaction and whether it violates existing rules. In his inaugural address Martinelli stressed the concept "debureaucratization" and the fact-finding mission that Shamah proposed flew in the face of that orientation.

Third, consider the economic interests involved. There are established hotel, pension and resort owners who don't want the extra competition, especially from those who don't pay the same hotel room tax that they do. In the wake of the upscale housing bubble's burst, there are companies looking to manage large blocks of individually owned and developer-unsold apartments as short-term lodging for people who don't live in Panama, essentially going into competition with the hotels in a major way without paying the same fees. There are more unsellable units, or units purchased prior to construction whose buyers never intended to live in them, currently under construction. The economic consequences of the speculative bubble are far from over, and what, if anything, the government intends to do to control the market distortions these consequences create is not yet known.

Fourth, consider other private property owners, who thought they were buying an apartment in a high-security luxury condo tower, and now face the prospect of units upstairs, downstairs or across the hall being used for short term lodging and thus all sorts of strangers coming and going, carrying on who knows what activities at whatever volume. They might want some respect for their property rights, they might want a say about their building's conversion to another purpose at a zoning hearing, and they might support the present provision that only units in buildings that are at least one-half dedicated to tourist lodgings can be registered and used in that fashion.

There are an awful lot of empty condos out there now, and at certain peak times there are hotel room shortages, so there are arguments that can be made in favor of converting some of these units into short-term lodgings.

The issue seems likely to return.

However, as he was waiting for his car outside the Miramar, this reporter asked Shamah a blunt question: "Did the Tourism Authority's resolution on short-term rentals create new rules, or just insist on enforcing existing ones?"

To which Shamah gave his frank response: "I am not going to talk about this."

In other words, he's adapting quickly to the minefield of public life. He knows how to duck a question. Fair enough.