Tourism in Panama is close to pre-pandemic levels, says the Government

Panama’s tourism activity is close to pre-pandemic levels, said today the general administrator of the state Tourism Authority of Panama (ATP), Iván Eskildsen.

“This year 75% of the level of visitors of 2019 is being achieved, and month after month we are almost at pre-pandemic levels (of Covid-19), with the added value that we are now betting on tourists who spend more time in the country and spend more money,” said the official in statements highlighted by the entity in a announcement.

The ATP reported on the balance after a meeting in which the entity Banistmo de Panamá became the first bank to complete the process to launch a risk-sharing guarantee program in loan portfolios to the tourism sector, thereby has established a total of US$300 million in bank guarantees, aimed at boosting bank financing for the tourism sector.

The meeting was also attended by representatives of the Panamanian Government, the Ministry of Economy and Finance, IDB Invest -the private sector bank of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Group-, the National Chamber of Tourism (Camptur) and the Panamanian Association of Hotels (Apatel).

Eskildsen, assured that the program recognizes the importance of the tourism sector for the national economy, seeking solutions to the restrictions in recent years on bank credit for the sector, which coincides with the fact that there is a more effective recovery of the tourism industry.

Raúl Jiménez, president of Apatel, agreed that tourism rates are steadily improving and stressed that this month aims to be the best in the last four years.

“Those are the indexes that tell us that 2023 should be a year of sustained recovery that allows the hotel sector in particular to expand its operations with the support of banks and the merits of each project,” he said.

“As a bank, we said yes from day one to the guarantee program as an effective mechanism to accompany the tourism sector and boost its recovery,” said Aimeé Sentmat, executive president of Banistmo.

She expressed the expectation that this is the first of “several guarantee programs, where the credit risk is shared between banks and guarantor entities, so that they have the capacity to reinvest these funds, in this case in the sector of the tourist industry.”

She specified that for this program “the bank will focus on medium and large companies, with a quota of US$80 million.”

Eder Córdoba, director of public financing of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, explained that this shared risk program is complemented by the productive fabric program for another US$300 million in credits, of which US$265 million are already placed in more of 4,600 micro, small and medium-sized companies nationwide, preserving more than 23,000 jobs.

An additional US$160 million will be added to the productive fabric program to give continuity to the initiative, according to the initiative.

Daniel Arévalo, IDB Invest executive, stated that the guarantee program is the first time it has been carried out in Panama and in the region, working with the public and private sectors.

With information from Xinhua