A hotel construction boom is under way in Panama. As to the estimates of APATEL (Panamanian Association of Hotels) and the Panamanian Board of Tourism, around eight to ten new hotels will be constructed in Panama in the next five years, adding more than 3,000 new rooms to the market.

The h&h (hotel and hospitality) sector is preparing to serve an increasing number of tourists who are visiting Panama each year. In the first trimester of 2007 (January-March), 389,258 tourists visited Panama, or 8.7% more than in the same period last year according to statistics from the Panamanian Institute of Tourism (IPAT).

The numbers only show tourist hotels in Panama City which reflected an overall occupancy rate of 53.3% and an overall increase of 11.4% over 2006, and the numbers reflected were 65% from high-end hotels and 34% from secondary hotels.

Holiday Inn Panama Canal, Radisson Colon 2000 and Trump Ocean Club, are some of the hotels that will be opening in Panama.

Panama is in process of offering the first international wholesale merchandise mart in Latin America. It will feature more than 6800 showrooms in 32 buildings of 275,000 square-feet each on 1309 acres (530 hectares) of land near the Panama Canal, in the Colon Province. This market will be the premiere trade destination for local, national and international Latin American wholesale buyers where manufacturers from all over the world will be able to show and exhibit their products permanently.

Like the Known Free Zone, this new option will be a professional wholesale market and will not be open to the general public. In order to register, you must be a wholesaler, importer , exporter , sales agent or distributor.

They already sold it first phase of development 6 month ahead of schedule, demonstrating the need for this type of facility, in phase one there were 800 showrooms for sale. Each showroom ranged in size from 538, 1076 and 1614 square feet. Phase 2 will have 1,600 showrooms for sale with the same configuration of sizes, an office park, convention center, hotels, and several apartment buildings. In phase 3 it will offer 3,600 showrooms. In phase 4, it will offer more 1,200 showrooms.

Open only to the trade, this market will offer the best selection of merchandise, including consumer goods, women’s and men’s fashion apparel, junior contemporary fashion, gift and decorative accessories, fashion accessories, children’s apparel, shoes and swimwear , etc.

For the convenience of buyers, they will be open year-round from Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 pm and 9 am to 1.00 pm on Saturday. It will be Panama’s and Latin America’s only wholesale Mart servicing year round the Latin America and the Caribbean markets. The mart will hold well known and top brand names, scheduled trade shows with temporary exhibitors joining the permanent exhibitors.

The manufacturers will have the unique opportunity to be permanently in direct contact with the Latin American wholesalers that often cannot travel abroad and to the USA because of visa restrictions. Now the Latin American and Caribbean wholesale buyers will have the opportunity to purchase merchandise from thousand of manufacturers from around the world under one roof.

This project will be the largest commercial structure in Latin America with over 1 million square meter of construction (10,763,910 square feet) with an investment of over 1 billion US dollars over a 5 year period. And it will feature: 32 showrooms buildings, 10 apartment buildings, 1 convention center, 10 office buildings and 4 hotels. Don’t loose time, contact us right now for more information.