In January 2009, the arrival of tourists to Panama grew by 11.7% over the same month last year.
The increase in tourists, in turn, meant an increase in foreign currency earnings of 15.9% compared to January 2008, according to the Tourism Authority of Panama.
Nacion.com published: "Reuben Blades, Minister of Tourism, reminded everyone that the traditional visitor coming to Panama is from the United States and Canada just like its neighbors Costa Rica and Colombia. Now the country wants to focus its efforts on attracting European tourists 'because of the Euro' and because 'they stay for a longer period of time (between 15 and 28 days),' according to Blades."
Panama received 771.376 visitors between January and June of this year, an increase of 12% over the same period of 2007.
The figures were provided by the Panamanian Institute of Tourism.
In June alone, the number of visitors to the country was up 14%. This increase, in addition to a positive performance on May, shifted the negative trend registered in April, when a drop in the number of cruise ships caused negative growth (-0.1%) in comparison to the same month of the previous year.
The number of visitors to Panama keeps on increasing.
The statistics department of the Panama Tourism Institute reports that 554,126 visitors arrived in the first four months of this year, up from 507,920 in the same period of 2007.
Of this year's total, 370,860 arrived by air, 42,113 by land and 141,207 by sea.
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