Panamainfo’s Blog

I just spent a morning  with some visiting relatives strolling around Casco Viejo. It was my first time in CV about a year and I was very surprised to see all the development in less than a year. There were quite a new excellent souvenir shops and restaurants and most surprising of all were the number of buildings being restored. Shortly after,  I  read in an article in La Prensa about the hopeful new pace of restoration in CV with a quote from Ariel Espino who said that there are 800 buildings in CV and that they need 16-20 new buildings to start being restored each year for CV and that that pace has finally been hit. Indeed CV is clearly developing into what will clearly be one of the most beautiful restored Spanish colonial sectors anywhere. As Arthur Frommer of the Frommers guides wrote recently, CV looks set to be more beautiful that San Juan Puerto Rico and will rival Cartagena.

CV has  stunning bay and ocean views throughout the neighborhood  as well as a delightful  variety of architectural  types from Spanish colonial to  1920’s Art Deco styles. And the Panamamanian and foreign investors are doing both beautiful and authentic restorations.

If you go, make sure and have some yummy  ice cream in the French ice cream store, Granclement and for souvenirs check out both the beautiful Reprosa jewelry store and the Galeria de Arte Indigena, perhaps the best souvenir shop in all Panama.

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The multinational consulting firm Mercer according to press reports today, just released a study in which Panama City is rated as # 2 in Latin America and for safety and quality of life. It is # 1 in Central America. (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic is # 1/San Jose, Costa Rica is #8. )

(The study included San Juan Puerto Rico which is rated # 1, but as Puerto Rico is not generally considered a Latin American country, Panama takes the first place. )

This survey confirms what many multinationals and individuals have already concluded- Panama City is the best place for their regional HQ- among those who have come recently to set up HQ are Dell, Hewitt Packard, Proctor & Gamble, Caterpillar, 3M, the United Nations, and I just heard Frito Lay is coming.

Panama City is far from perfect….especially traffic problems can be intense, but aside from that Panama City is a great place for international corporations, families and individuals. It is one of the safest cities anywhere if you follow rules of common sense that apply to cities everywhere, ie don’t walk around at night in a poor area.)There is a variety of fine neighborhoods to choose from, the best food and appliance shopping in Latin America, 3 major new shopping malls, lots of reasonably priced excellent restaurants and for vacationing many attractive beach and mountain destinations. Not to mention the Panamanian people themselves-accustomed to foreigners, friendly, helpful and warm.

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Great New Upscale Holiday Inn in the City of Knowledge, Clayton, former American Canal Zone: Just attended the inauguration of this new hotel- it is a beauty with a contemporary design that blends in with the traditional Zone architecture and amazing birds-eye views of the Panama Canal and the rainforest. The guest rooms are as nice as many a 5 star hotel. With all the business coming related to the Canal expansion, this 128 room hotel is perfectly located and a much needed given the current shortage of Panama City hotels. This Holiday Inn is also home to Central America first hotel school.

Wow- Central America’s First Hotel School- something our burgeoning industry really needed- the facilties are state-of-the art and the international and national staff are first rate. A Panamanian can now for less the $3000.00 a year tuition get training in the major hotel skills from cooking to management and upon graduation is just about guaranteed a job. I was fascinated with the cooking class salon- it looked like the set of a a Cooking Channel show.

Congratulations to Herman Bern and his Bern Hotels group for once again perfect timing and hotel- architectural delight.

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The Scoop on New Hotels To Be Built Soon: 1, 906 rooms in the next 3 years:

One of our biggest concerns in the tourism industry is the shortage of hotels in Panama City. Sometimes you cannot get a reservation. For large meetings it is recommended you now reserve 1-3 years in advance.

Fidel Reyes, a top Bern hotel executive, just did some research and came up with this list of all the hotels certain to be built in Panama City and nearby opening for sure from now until 2010.

134 Rooms The Holiday Inn City at Knowledge Opening March 27, 2008

102 Rooms The Radisson Colon 2000 Hotel and Casino Opening April 15th, 2008

134 Rooms The Bristol Buenaventura Opening December, 2008

103 Rooms The Radisson Summit Golf And Resort Opening April 2009

80 Rooms The Panama Marriott (ext.) 376 total Opening late 2009

125 Rooms The LeMeridian Hotel Opening June 2009

128 New Rooms Courtyard by Marriott (ext.) 248 total Opening fall 2009

800 Rooms Megapolis Condo-Apart-Hotel Opening late 2009 FIRST PHASE

300 Rooms Rennaissance Panama Opening late 2010

TOTAL: Aprox. 1,906 New Rooms in 3 years, counting the 800 condo-apart-hotel units, I’m sure some other small properties will open around the Marbella, Obarrio and San Francisco area.

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Panamainfo’s High Google Placement: Panamainfo is comes up on a Google Search of “Panama” # 2 or # 3. out of 130 million sites. It also comes up high under many other keywords. We are the first commercial site, with only wikopedia regularly topping us. Basically, any one doing a search on “Panama” will find us. We are receiving about 1500 unique visitors a month who spend an average of 5 minutes on the site.

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Beating The Crowds To Panama

Panama is one of the key crossroads in the world, the land bridge between North America and South America and the waterway between the Atlantic and the Pacific, yet it seems to be perpetually a decade or two behind always-trendy Costa Rica in drawing crowds of tourists. This is true even though Panama has all the elements to qualify as a Central American hotspot: teeming wildlife, sandy beaches, scuba diving, world-class fishing, widespread English proficiency, reliable transportation and a cosmopolitan capital city.

Coasting Along the Pacific

The steamy glamour and air of infinite possibility that lure people to Panama in search of a new life is not exclusive to its capital, Panama City. High-end residential developments up the Pacific coast and on the islands scattered off it promise to deliver the requisite combination of oceanfront setting, high-tech communication systems, stylish architecture and cosmopolitan multiple home-owning neighbours.

Panama’s Hottest Secret

If you’re looking to get ahead of the game, Panama City’s Casco Viejo is as up-and-coming as it gets, says Vicky Baker. Go now before the word is well and truly out.

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In 1999, Newsweek magazine published a graph with the Pinkerton Intelligence Agencies assessment of tourism safety for all the countries in the world. Panama rated the top category for tourism safety- the same as the United States.( I have a copy of the article) Good news- Nothing has changed- Panama is still one of the safest countries in the region for tourists- The American Chamber of Commerce Tourism Committee just met with the head of the National Tourism Police and Panama’s rate for tourism crime is .03- about as low as it gets. It is almost all petty theft. FYI, there are some current problems with robberies in hotel rooms when guests have left, which they are working to solve.

I have traveled extensely in Latin America and making comparisons, I did not need these stats to know that Panama is a safe place for tourists. In so many other places you have to be constantly on your guard and robberies of tourists are common place.

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