Surf tourism pours millions into the Panamanian economy

Waves and surfing bring in millions of dollars. Panama knows this and has decided to promote three major competitions in this sport on its shores.

The recent Pan American Surfing on Pacific Beaches brought in $2 million, and in July they will celebrate another championship in the Caribbean.

Pan American Surfing on the beaches of Santa Catalina gathered 400 surfers from 19 countries at the end of April, an event that represented an economic tsunami for this dirt road town located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean.

The Tourism Authority of Panama (ATP) assured in a statement that this event has left Santa Catalina “Economic spillover of more than 2 million dollars and hotel occupancy 100

“The advantage is in the long term. It is the positioning (that the destination achieves) for thousands of people who, thanks to this type of event, learn about the quality of the Santa Catalina wave,” said ATP General Administrator Ivan Eskildsen.

But beyond the direct revenue generated by the competition, the Panama Tourism Authority noted that the global impact is greater, as Pan American Surfing has an estimated 36 million fans through streaming and telecasts in Panama. , Canada, the United States or Spain.

Eskildsen announced that Panama has developed a master plan for sustainable tourism, where surfing is the pinnacle of adventure tourism in the Central American country.

“When destinations become attractive for surfing, a whole environment is created around the activities that begin to consolidate” those places, the general administrator pointed out.

So Panama decided to surf in 2022, when the Pan American was held in Playa Venao, in the province of Los Santos, repeating the experience of this 2023 in Santa Catalina, and now joins Bocas del Toro in July to close the so-called surfing trilogy”.

The government of Panama is investing something 800,000 dollars for the promotion of these three events, as Eskildsen discovered.

“Surfing has been found to make destinations attractive, as part of this adventure tourism, because generally people are looking for the beach. It is in Bocas del Toro that we are trying to consolidate the three surfing destinations in Panama,” he noted.

economy in motion
Peruvian Karín Sierralta, president of the Pan American Surfing Association (PASA), traveled to Santa Catalina during the competition, ten days in which top athletes, some even world champions, gathered on its beaches.

“Every one of them comes and starts sharing content on social networks and this affects the advertising of the destination“said Sierralta, who is still an active surfer.

Thus, he assures, “it is worth noting that by promoting on social networks, generating content and in all specialized media where information bounces (…), indirect profit could be more than 6 million dollars”.

It is not a small, tangible, direct benefit. For example, he added, each of these surfers could invested between 1500 and 2000 dollars per week.

We spent 300 dollars on the transportation of the boards alone, not counting the costs of accommodation, food, internal transport and hydration.

The tourist market in Santa Catalina goes hand in hand with surfing, especially on the island of Coiba, which was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2005 and is about a 45-minute boat ride from the city, which took weeks. high season (which usually runs from January to mid-April) with this Pan American.

“Occupation during the event was almost 100% (…) all places were full. Surfing and Coiba are what help the hotel movement in Santa Catalina the most,” explained Julio Mateo, president of the Hotel Chamber there.

In Santa Catalina, according to Mateo, has about 400 rooms, where nightly rates range from $17 in hostels to $126 in high-end hotels.

For all these reasons, this town, once dedicated almost exclusively to fishing, has seen fishermen like Oriel Tenoria leave their nets to dedicate themselves to tourist hunters, who have been taught about the Coiba Natural Park and the diversity of marine species.

“Surfer tourism has existed since the ’90s, but since 2004, ecological tourism has supplanted fishing. Santa Catalina is marketed as a tourist spot with the best waves in the Panamanian Pacific for surfing,” Tenorio emphasized.