Panama hotels building boom

(Panama-Star) PANAMA. Panama is among the hottest destinations for hotel development right now, with 19 major projects comprising 4,119 rooms in development as of the close of the third quarter of last year, according to Portsmouth, New Hampshire-based Lodging Econometrics.

Given that volume, says Hotels magazine, Panama soon will overtake the ever-popular market of Costa Rica as the hottest development destination in Central America.

It continues: “Panama City, where more than half of the country's 17,000 existing hotel rooms and most of the development projects are located, offers a perfect combination of business and leisure activities.

For example, Bern enterprises plans to open and manage another two hotels this year, including an exclusive 20-villa cluster adjacent to the company's InterContinental Playa Bonita Resort. It recently opened the 118-room Le Méridien hotel and, by the end of the year, a 40-key hotel component for an existing residential project in the Coronado Beach area.

And while Panama has not been extremely successful in attracting the Europe markets (Europeans now make up only about 10-15 percent of visitor arrivals), great potential lies in those markets, especially with KLM's late 2008 announcement that it would increase from three to five the number of weekly direct flights from Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport to Panama City.

Some 210,000 Europeans visited Panama in 2008, nearly twice as many as the year before, according to Panama’s tourist authority (ATP).

Part of the reason for the prevalence of Panama City hotel projects is the market's performance, and perhaps equally important is the availability of financing.

In 2007, Panama climbed to second place in the world in hotel occupancy on the Deloitte Global Ranking Index, with 84.7 percent occupancy. Meanwhile, Panama City is a financial center, with many large international banks operating there, as well as strong national banks. With that combination, plus tax incentives from the country's government to encourage foreign investment in hotel and tourism development, there are projects aplenty.

Some of the other Panama City developments under way include the 300-room Renaissance Panama Hotel Financial District and the 150-room Buddha Bar Hotel & Spa Panama, from Revat Group. Projects already under construction include the Playa Blanca Beach Resort; the Bristol Buenaventura; the Nikki Beach Resort & Residences; and SuperClubs' 330-room all-inclusive Breezes Playa Blanca.

The latest to be announced is the inauguration of Riu Panama Plaza hotel on on November 1, 2010.

This five-star, 645-room hotel has entailed a $125-million investment.

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Original Source: http://www.laestrella.com.pa/mensual/2009/09/22/contenido/149920.asp
Date Retrieved: September 23, 2009