Panama outstrips Costa Rica with tourist income

Panama received 2.5 million tourists in 2015 but had double the amount of foreign income received by Costa Rica from the 2.6 million who visited that country in the same year.

The number of tourists who went to Panama in 2015 exceeded by 10.7% the amount recorded in 2014, according to the Tourism Authority of Panama (ATP)  With the 2.5 million who came year, the country is very close to matching the record of Costa Rica, which reached 2.6 million. In addition, the Comptroller General’s Office estimated an increase in foreign exchange from tourism, having counted $4,171,000, compared to $2,635,000 which went  into Costa Rica from a similar number of tourists.

Prensa.com reported that “… 46.1% of tourists who came into the country last year came from the southern end of the continent, led by Colombia (288,569), Venezuela (260,145), Brazil (88,348), Ecuador (74,043), and Peru (50,275). After South America, the northern region (the United States, Mexico and Canada) accounted for 24.1% of tourists, followed by Europe with 13.6%, Central America 10.3% and the Caribbean with 2.3%.
Hotel occupancy plummets
However, hotel occupancy recorded its worst year since 2006, closing 2015 with 56.1%. “… It is estimated that in hotels with over 100 rooms, 53.9% of the rooms went empty last year, while for smaller hotels, the situation was more critical