Welcome to the Panama Weekly News Roundup! Black Friday boosts hotel occupancy by double digits. The Panama Canal will be installing tolls. And the new Biomuseo is listed as one of the world’s top 10. Here’s the latest.
Panama Canal to Unveil Toll Plan by Year End
The Panama Canal continues to be the most significant source of revenue for the country, and as it seems, this number will only increase over the next few years. In anticipation of increased traffic from the Canal Expansion Project, the government and Canal Authority have decided to increase income by installing paid tolls for ships. This is already in place in many parts of the world, and makes the new Canal more financially competitive.
The new tolls will be one of the primary factors determining whether LNG shipped from the Gulf of Mexico to Asia is competitive with other global suppliers Chubu Electric Power Co. Executive Officer Toshimi Tsuchiya said. Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Chubu Electric plan to buy liquefied natural gas from the region after the expanded waterway allows most LNG carriers to pass through it.
“There should not be any surprise,” said Quijano, referring to the new toll plan while declining to provide details. “Our tolls have to be competitive. We are not alone in the world. So, we have to look at what the value of the Panama Canal transit is and we have to stay with a competitive price.”
Source: Bloomberg
Panama’s new Biomuseo is lauded as one of the world’s best.
As we’ve written about in the past, Panama has a new bio museum, and after a long wait, it is now getting international recognition. The “Biomuseo”, as it’s called, showcases Panama’s natural wildlife in a unique setting of preservation, education, and hands-on experience. The building itself sticks out as a global style icon, and the museum is predicted to boost tourism by hundreds of thousands each year. Now, it has been listed as one of the world’s top 8 new museums.
According to information published by the BBC news portal, the new eight most impressive museums worldwide are: Biomuseum of Panama, the Sifang Art Museum in Nanjing (China), National Maritime Museum in Helsingor (Denmark), the Stedelijk Museum in Schiedam (Netherlands), the MuCEM in Marseille (France), the Maritime Museum in Porsgrunn in Norway and Chang Ucchin Museum in South Korea.
The Biomuseum, designed by Canadian architect Frank Gehry, just opened last May, is one of the projects with most attention for its unusual exterior design. The Biomuseum is located at the entrance of the Canal and is Gehry’s first design in Latin America. With this, the father of Guggenheum Museum in Bilbao, Spain, has once again created an infrastructure that demands attention. The building has 4,000 square meters divided into eight galleries.
Source: GoGetIt Panama
The French School Where Panama Canal Pilots Train in Cute Little Ships
The people who steer the ships in the Panama Canal are some of the best trained in the business. They’re known as “pilots”, and unlike typical boat captains, have to regularly pilot the world’s largest ships through a very narrow passage in the Panama Canal. Interestingly enough, they have a school that specifically specializes in training them for this type of trip. Even more interesting, it’s in France.
To train pilots to maneuver so-called Post-Panamax ships through the canal’s reconfigured waterways, the Panama Canal Pilots Association is sending some of its members to an unlikely location: the French Alps.
Port Revel, near Grenoble, is one of the few facilities in the world devoted to ship handling on a miniature scale.
Maritime pilots and captains have been coming to the school since it opened in 1967, drawn by the opportunity to practice skills in a way that’s more real than a computer simulator and less dangerous than taking control of a 70,000-ton ship with a stopping distance measured in miles. Port Revel’s oil tankers, container ships, cruise ships, and tugboats are meticulously crafted 1:25 scale models, complete with helm, electric engine, bow and stern thruster controls, mooring lines, and operational anchors.
Source: Wired
Black Friday Increases Hotel Occupancy In Panama City
The post-Thanksgiving tradition of Black Friday is not exclusive to the United States. In Panama, since at least 2012, malls, retail stores, and restaurants have adopted the tradition, and with great success. So much success, in fact, that it has increased hotel occupancy during the period by double digits. During Black Friday, stores offer extended hours and major discounts on products and services, in order to generate a big push in sales.
Central America Data: For this year Multiplaza Mall is advertising that they will open their doors at 6:00 am and close at midnight and customers will be able to take advantage of deals of up to 70% off. Parking will also be completely free the entire day.
Source: PTY Life
