Encouraging Travel to Panama

The Panamanian Embassy is inviting more Belizeans to travel to Panama. The Central American nation is a popular transit point for Belizeans travelling to Latin America and the Caribbean. Belizeans are not required to have a visa when travelling to Panama. Today, the embassy, in collaboration with COPA Airline, held an educational workshop to provide information on the many sites and adventures Panama has to offer to visitors who plan to visit. News Five’s Paul Lopez was at the event. He filed the following report.

 

Paul Lopez, Reporting

There are many places to see and things to do in Panama, from visiting the Panama Canal, to stops at the numerous museums, snorkeling, cultural experiences and so much more. This Central American country is only an hour and a half from Belize by air. This morning, the Panamanian Embassy, together with Copa Airlines, held an educational workshop with a purpose to increase Belizean travel to its shores.

 

Lorena Correal, Travel Trade Director. PROMTUR

“I can imagine you have heard about Panama, our modern city, our canal, or our tax free zone but today I will go deeper into our country to the other provinces or all the experiences you can have while visiting our country.”

 

Lorena Correal is the Director of Travel Trade and Alliances for PROMTUR Panama, a destination marketing organization. In her presentation, Correal highlighted the unique experiences visitors can enjoy in each of Panama’s ten provinces. With twenty-thousand rooms in Panama City and ten thousand in the country’s interior, Correal says there is an option for everyone.

 

Lorena Correal

“Our country is quite small which makes it perfect to visit many places in a short amount of time. Also we have great transportation. We are one of the only countries in Latin America that has an underground metro that even goes to the airport, making it easy for people to travel to our country. When visiting Panama you can check off your bucket list and visit the Panama Canal. You can visit one of our two visitors center, experiencing what millions of boats experiences while visiting the canal. You can also visit our museum which is not only beautiful on the inside but on the outside. We go to the province of Los Santos. This area of the country is the cradle of our culture. This area is where the artists still live and practice their craft. This area also hosts most of the important cultural events like carnivals or even the celebration of our beautiful national dress. Getting their can take you five hours by car or a flight of thirty minutes.  This area is very precious for divers, snorkels and it is blessed by the visit of the humpback whales from July to October and also seven species of turtles.”

 

COPA Airlines recently increased the number of flights it has available from Belize to Panama. Today, those wanting to travel to the isthmus can now do so on Wednesdays and Fridays. And, as an incentive, Copa travelers can take advantage of the company’s latest free stopover promotion.

 

Lorena Correal

“I want to say I am very pleased to be here in Belize City to share with our agencies and tour operators and today was to inspire your tour operators to recommend our destination to Belizeans. We want you to come explore our country, our beautiful city and priority destinations. We collaborate with COPA Airlines, its Panama’s national airlines. And we work with them, to invite more visitors to our country. And, one of those strategies is the stop over program that allows visitors to visit two destinations with one ticket. So visitors would have to book their rickets in advance with he stop over program and they can stay in  Panama for one to seven days, with no additional cost on their airfare.”

 

Reporting for News Five, I am Paul Lopez.