U.S. giant Carnival Corp. said its shareholders have approved the acquisition of British enterprise P&O Princess for $5 billion to clinch the berth as the world’s largest cruise company.
Miami-based Carnival said in a brief press release that the stockholders of P&O Princess –a cruise company famous for its “love boats”- are planning to hold a meeting Wednesday in London to officially announce the transaction.
Tourism, a sector that used to be almost nonexistent in Panama a decade ago, chipped in $678.8 million worth of revenues last year and outdid earnings generated by the Panama Canal’s toll money.
According to the Panamanian Tourism Institute (IPAT), 800,161 vacationers traveled to the country in 2002, thus outnumbering the 737,102 trippers who flew to the nation in 2001 for an 8.6 percent increase.
Entrepreneurs from the cruise sector will fork over almost $10 billion in Mexico in the next three years with the hope of creating over 120,000 new jobs.
Benjamin Mendez Aguila, communication coordinator for British company Seatrade Cruise, informed this investment package will bring about knock-down-drag-out competition between Mexico and Caribbean nations as far as this sector is concerned.
According to Mr. Aguila, national service providers should take their offer and quality up one peg to draw in hard-currency markets and generate new jobs.
Taca Group’s announcement of cutbacks in plane ticket sale commissions has put travel agencies in a jam that, as many experts believe, could pave the way to bankruptcy if other airlines follow suit.
Panama’s Travel & Tourism Association (APAVIT is the acronym in Spanish) says Taca’s decision –scheduled to go into effect next April 16- deals a deadly blow to the travel industry.
Financial group Banorte will grant a $93 million credit line all through 2003 to back up small and medium enterprises linked to Mexico’s tourist industry, said Othon Ruiz, the group’s president.
Mr. Ruiz explained Banorte’s confidence in the development of tourism-oriented companies in the country was key in its decision to funnel that lump sum into a sector that stands for one of the nation’s major economic boosters.
According to the banking official, tourism is by and large one of the fastest-growing economic fields in both the mid and long run.
American travel agencies dealing with Asian destinations have pretty good chances of going belly up given the massive avalanche of cancellations triggered by the hard-hitting atypical respiratory syndrome (ARS), sources close to the sector informed.
The number of U.S. tourists flying to Asia dropped from 80 to 90 percent in the last couple of weeks. “It’s a catastrophe,” said Golden Yuan, owner of Perfect Transportation and Travel Service, an L.A.-based company specialized in sending groups of travelers to China.