If you're thinking of going on vacation, you should consider heading to Panama. The Central American country is a quick flight from Belize, and today the Panamanian Embassy held an educational workshop explaining why you should give it a try, and what incentives there are. The Travel Trade & Strategic Alliances Director of Promtur Panama told us more.

Lorena Correal, Travel Trade & Strategic Alliances Dir., Promtur Panama
"Today's presentation was to inspire your tour operators and agencies to recommend out destination to Belizeans. We want you to come and explore our country, our beautiful city, and all our priority destinations. Belize is just one and a half hours away from Panama and I think it's an ideal destination for Belizeans to go and experience."

"We at Promtur Panama, we collaborate with COPA Airlines, COPA Airlines is Panama national airline and we work with them to invite more visitors to our country and one of those strategies is the stopover program which allows visitors to experience two destinations with one ticket so visitors would have to book their tickets in advance with the stopover program and they can stay in Panama from one to seven days with no additional cost on their airfare."

"I know that Belize has beautiful beaches so I think when you come to Panama, you would look for something different that would complement your life and I think our modern city could give that to Belizeans. We have a big city, very modern, full of contrasts, our gastronomy is very rich, it's delicious, when you come to Panama, you're going to gain a few pounds and also we have a lot of other destinations outside of Panama City and I want to highlight the Chiriqui province, the districts of Tierras Altas in Boquete. Chiriqui is a mountainous province, the weather is milder, when you go there Panamanians even wear scarves because we're not used to the cold weather. So when you go there you can visit our coffee plantations and learn the coffee process from bean to cup and also you can go hiking, go up the Baru volcano which I told you, it's the only place on Earth where you can see the Atlantic and the Pacific on the same day. So there's a lot for you to explore, it's a small country, so you could visit it in a week, you get to experience all of this."