A REAL CHANGE

Lightening up boring airports

Imagine theme park airports that simulate local landscape and architecture, all the while showcasing Panama’s treasures

JAIME FIGUEROA NAVARRO

PANAMA. After five decades wandering in airports in more than forty countries in five continents, last night I thought of a dream that I would like to see realized in Panama.

Following a policy of real changes, rather than the forecasting and improvisations that have characterized tourism directors of previous governments, I would like to see a private bidding for the administration of the 25 national airports.

Simultaneously I would also like to see the construction of new international airports in Colon, Cocle, Veraguas, Chiriqui, Azuero and Bocas del Toro, all connected to toll highways, which would also go into a private bidding and would mark the start of a modern and real national roads network.

The bidding would incorporate exciting new designs.

Every airport would be a theme park that would simulate the nearby landscape and architecture, so the tourists, the majority of them pilgrims, would have an incentive to visit and get to know the different parts of the country.

Tocumen airport, which would continue to be the principal airdrome, would have a video system over escalators between gates and a main terminal where the traveler would be able to observe the history of the isthmus from its geological birth three million years ago joining the Americas until the present day.

All this would be complemented with stalls and stations, where the traveler could stop to savor the “

The airport would also have stalls where the traveler can learn that Panama has more bird species than any other country in the world, even Costa Rica, which boasts about its flora and fauna.

Similarly, Tocumen would have stations where the tourist can get information about Panama, which like its name’s meaning says, has an abundance of fish.

Few people know that Panama has gathered an impressive amount of sport fishing records, apart from being the home of the second biggest merchant navy and the second largest free zone in the world.

These are facts that thousands of travelers who walk through Tocumen every day do not know.

This vision, of course, should be complemented with an attentive, efficient and speedy service, that currently does not exist.

A real change ?Last night, I had a dream!

The author is a tourist specialist.

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