Tourism world upside down

The figures are alarming. The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean has warned that the impact of the restrictive measures issued in Panama during the pandemic will cause, from 2020 to 2023, no less than $12 billion in revenue to be lost in the tourism sector, including wages and profits that employees and businessmen will no longer receive, among other actors. And in the midst of the catastrophe, the government of Laurentino Cortizo has had the luxury of approving 100% tax incentives for private investments in this sector in the interior of the country, as if that would solve the problem of currently having more than 9,000 unoccupied hotel rooms. This contrast reveals that the government lives in a separate world, without contact with reality, and reflects unforgivable negligence in the handling of State funds. We are experiencing a crisis that could still get worse, and the only thing that occurs to politicians is to give away money from the treasury because what matters to them, above all things, is to please their friends or their “political investors” who seek tax benefits with projects that could hardly be defined as tourism or that can promote tourism. The world is upside down.- LA PRENSA, May 11.