Interior misses out on hospitality industry boom.

HOTELS AND RESTAURANTS in Panama grossed $1.166 billion in 2013 representing a growth of 3.2 percent over the previous year. 

However, the growth in the sector was restricted to Panama City where new hotels have been sprouting up like spring flowers after a long winter in the colder zones of the world. Their arrival has solved the capital’s winter of discontent, when there were insufficient rooms for tourists and business travelers.

Now the city could be looking at a surplus of rooms, worrying to some hoteliers who need to maintain a 60% occupancy rate to stay profitable.
The increase in rooms has led to more available jobs at all levels, but a shortage of qualified personnel, particularly among wait staff, with hotels and restaurant’s poaching from each other, which leads to wage increases.
Good for the man or lady serving you, but have you noticed recently how many restaurants have shiny new menus to lay before clients/customers (designation depends on the perceived social level). The new menu contains new prices, which helps boost the gross, but often barely covers increased salaries and ever growing food costs and in the long term may reduce customer flow.
Meanwhile, for restaurateurs and hotels in the Interior much of the above is academic. While they face increased overheads , they have not shared in the expansion of the bottom line. While the city businesses saw revenues increase by 4.2 percent ,in the interior there was a drop of 0.7 percent