The Tourism Minister of Panama, Gustavo Him, and his Argentine counterpart, José Gustavo Santos, signed a memorandum of understanding for the online training of tourist guides in the English language. The agreement was signed within the framework of the International Tourism Fair of Latin America (FIT), which culminated on October 2 with the participation of 1,500 exhibitors from 52 countries, including Panama. “One of the challenges that Panama has is to improve its quality in services and the guides play a fundamental role in that aspect, since they are the ones who make the first contact with the visitor, mainly those who come from countries like Canada, United States , among others, “said Him.
He added that it is necessary to venture into other languages, but especially in English, which is the universal commercial language to enrich our capacity to attend to visitors. “It will be easy to access the documents online and the training will cover three intensive modules on the subject”. Minister Santos, for his part, pointed out that the agreement is important for both nations because through the content of each module, quality guidelines and useful tourist training programs are transferred to the personnel responsible for attending to the visitor.
On the other hand, he indicated that it would be interesting to exploit the Chinese market through Panama, because it is the most important route that Latin America has. He gave as an example that Air China is flying to Panama is a possibility that both countries can take advantage of to capture together this distant market and although it seems strange to offer a product that links the airline with Panama and Argentina. “It is not impossible for someone that comes from as far as the Chinese tourist interested in knowing several destinations of the continent “.
He stressed that Argentina would add value to Panama and the Panamanian isthmus to the South American country with its “great connection” which currently benefits from direct Copa Airlines flights to destinations such as: Buenos Aires, Rosario, Malta, Cordoba, Mendoza , Salta and soon Tucumán. During the international fair, Him explained to important Argentine media the promotional work of the destination that the Tourism Authority of Panama has been carrying out in the region.
In the short term, according to Him, it is planned to publish a tourist guide that shows the products that Panama has – both in paper and in digital – in different languages, such as French, German, Mandarin, Portuguese and English and a directory of tourism operators , which is another necessary tool because it is not only the promotion but also the marketing of those who offer the service.
