30 Jan ATP & AIR FRANCE SIGNED AGREEMENT TO ATTRACT EUROPEAN TOURISTS
Promoting the development of new flights between Europe and Panama, along with the traffic of travelers to our country, have been the main objectives of the advertising agreement shared between the Tourism Authority of Panama (ATP) and Air France Airlines for a period of three years, which began in 2014 and ended in 2016.
As a result, the flight frequencies of Air France has increased from 3 weekly flights in 2014 to 7 direct Paris to Panama flights nowadays. Since the first direct flight from Air France to Panama, the arrival of European visitors has been positive throughout this period.
According to Gina Valderrama, Director of the Tourism Investment Department, the Airline’s advertising agency designed a marketing and advertising strategy to encourage Air France travelers and other potential tourists to consider Panama as their next destination. This strategy looked forward to impact and motivate travelers from France, Germany, the UK, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, Switzerland and Spain to visit this amazing country. Marketing activities included traditional and non-traditional advertising methods, direct marketing to frequent flyers of the airline, seminars to travel agents and tour operators in France, invitations to specialized press, European agents, fam trips, support to the renowned Panamanian tourism fair Expoturismo, and the production of a video about Panama which is shown on the airline’s airplanes.
According to the Statistics Department of the ATP, up until September 2016, a total of 147,665 passengers entered the Tocumen International Airport with the following airlines: Air France, Iberia, KLM, Turkish and Lufthansa. Of this total, Air France carried 34,113 passengers, which represented a 23.1%. Similarly, two new routes were opened from Europe. The first, with Lufthansa, which started operations with direct flights from March 2016 and so far has transferred 27,914 passengers, representing 18.9%. The second route with Turkish Airlines, which opened its new route to Panama in May, and currently flies to 108 destinations in Europe, carrying a total of 2,937 passengers, representing 2.0%.