Playacommunity.com Then and Now: History and Progress

By: Jamuna BurryIn 2007, I had recently moved to Coronado and was in attendance at an informal resident’s meeting at the Coronado Resort Hotel.  At that meeting the information shared was important enough for more people to know about it. However, the reach was limited to the people present at the meeting, and whomever they talked to. While word-of-mouth would get the information to some people, many would go without knowing. Also, the content of what did get passed on would be unreliable. Hence playacommunity.com was born as a portal for passing on information.Over the next few years, playacommunity.com would provide relevant information to a small, but growing English-speaking expat community in Coronado. The potential for doing business at the beaches was great, but the full-time consumer base was not large enough to support the operation of many small companies, including playacommunity.com. Businesses came and went rapidly. In order to survive I made exclusive advertising agreements with two real estate companies. This allowed them to list properties and advertise real estate sales and rentals on the website. It was an unconventional approach. In a market where businesses were desperately seeking clients to stay afloat, I made the decision to limit the amount of clients we could work with.

 The strategy paid off. It allowed us to put our focus on building our presence instead of hunting for new clients.

The next great challenge playacommunity.com faced was the loss of its main advertisers. Due to company restructuring, both our exclusive real estate companies dropped their ad campaigns with Playacommunity.com within a short time of each other.  I was faced with the decision to fold, or put in the work required to source new clients. By this time the website had developed a strong online presence, being reached daily through searches from over 100 countries looking at Panama for investment opportunities. I had the real estate companies to thank for this. Their support over the years helped us build.

Even though there were now more websites talking about Panama, playacommunity.com had an edge. Since the site did not make revenue through direct real estate sales, the information presented was credible. The site also stayed away from taking hard opinionated stances and focused on providing positive community news and useful information. Also, the information presented was written by people actually living life in the beach community.

With the loss of the company’s main revenue, I took stock of playacommunity.com’s strengths and made the decision to move forward and seek out new clients.

Operated by a very small team on a very low budget, the company still faced a large demographic gap. The Spanish speaking market was left largely untouched; tourists visiting the area had no way of learning about our advertisers, unless they found us on the internet; and many residents at the edges of the Coastal neighborhoods still had not heard of playacommunity.com.  Closing that gap meant having content in both languages and finding a way to reach the people who were not looking at the Internet.

This meant going to print and having distribution points across the beach areas. The beach market was growing. Many more real estate projects had emerged, more foreigners were moving to Panama’s beaches and supporting businesses were starting to take root.

The decision for an online company to go to print was another unconventional decision and a big gamble. It meant deadlines would have to be met, additional help would be required, and our expenses would go up significantly. There was no real way to know if a paper publication would be successful. I knew however, that we would be on the ground floor in this endeavor. I also knew it was important for our advertisers that we find a better way to get their message out to people at the beaches.

In February 2013, playacommunity.com put out their first newspaper called La Playa. It was worth the chance. Immediately The La Playa Newspaper began to fly off the shelves at every distribution point. 

Today, after only two years, over 200 locations across Panama’s Pacific Coast carry the La Playa Newspaper. Playacommunity.com has continued to grow along side the newspaper. With online and print, our message now has a much larger reach.

Our team has grown to include loyal writers, designers and sales representatives. The community has grown with us. Over the last decade, I’ve seen the Coronado area snowball from a single grocery store to include a plethora of large and small businesses along with a growing population to support them.

The small retirement community of Coronado has transformed into a lively demographic sprawling across the Pacific Coast. I am fortunate to be in a position to feel the pulse of the area and watch a new community form, put down roots, and bear fruit.  Playacommunity.com and now La Playa continue to stand in the midst of it all, telling a story of a growing, yet connected community.