Panamanian tourism has not recovered from the impact caused by the mobility restriction measures applied to combat Covid-19.
The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) calculates that between 2020 and 2023 this sector will have lost $12 billion.
In the same vein, Raúl Jiménez, president of the Panamanian Hotel Association (Apatel), commented that 30,000 jobs lost in the last two years have not yet been recovered.
“We see this ECLAC estimate as quite logical and close to reality, that means that we became poorer or more indebted, the debt is not a gift, it is paid later. That is the terrible effect that the closure of tourism in the country that is now looking to get back on its feet again,” he stressed.
In Jiménez’s opinion, we are still bogged down in that Covid-19 psychosis that we must begin to overcome. “Last year the level of foreign tourists that arrived in Panama was only 30% of what we had in 2019, by the way, 2019 was a bad year for tourism in Panama, since 2015 we have been in decline,” he added. .
