Explore Panama Partnership Plan

About Us

Explore Panama is a comprehensive Online Destination Guide for Panama with descriptions, photos, and listings of contact information for Panama's best offering of services supporting Travel, Business, and Living. It was founded to promote Panama and make its offerings more accessible to regional and international markets. As Panama open its doors to international markets and travelers, Explore Panama provides you the opportunity to partner with us for a better business future.

Our audience is the 19 million (and growing) users of the Wold-wide Web who gain product and service information, plan purchases, and engage in e-commerce online. This international audience, that can more than doubles in size every year, primarily includes households with annual earnings more than $50,000. Its make-up includes business executives, entrepreneurs, retiring expatriates, international travelers, and resident weekend explorers.

Explore Panama puts this market in touch with the services and opportunities you offer in an easy to use and attractive manner. We are a value-added directory that grows its audience with publication style feature articles and an increasing offering of travel planning tools, reservation programs, and e-commerce solutions that lower the cost and increase the ease of connecting our readers with our local service providers and listed partners.

Explore the Benefits

For Our Readers and Your Customers

Easy to Use - Whether you need travel, living, or business services Explore Panama can help you find the best Panama has to offer. Just click on an area of interest or a location. The rest is fast, easy, and informative.
See It Before You Buy It - Whether it's a hotel room or a jungle tour, you can see photos along with complete pricing information, including customer reviews, if available, to help prevent any unpleasant surprises.
A Convenient Planner - As you go through the guide, highlighting the items of interest, you can easily create a short list with complete contact info and location to use for scheduling, reservations, or as a pocket guide for your travels. Even print out a map.
Quick Contact - Through phone, fax, e-mail or web link….your customers are just one step away.
Communicate Your Plans - Send an e-mail postcard to a friend from a gallery of Panama photos or post travel notes or partner requests on our subject indexed bulletin board.

To Your Business

A Quality Presentation Supports Your Business Image - Compare our quality and offer to others available including www.panamatravel.com, www.panamainfo.com and others. You'll find that we are the best investment you can make in your company's business image.
Guaranteed Customer Satisfaction - Our Customer Reviews are better than a rating system and keep the average service level high among our partners. Business don't survive with bad reviews and thrive with good ones. You will be in good company in Explore Panama.
Online Marketing that Works - Heavy traffic and qualified prospects don't come automatically with a Website. We build a presence through actively linking with other sites, listing with online directories, being visible to search engines, and cross-marketing www.explorepanama.com with a strong campaign of public relations and advertising.
One-Stop Co-op Marketing Support - When you co-site and list with us, you get the total results of our integrated marketing campaign. Whether you offer SCUBA Diving classes, River Rafting trips, or have Island real estate for sale, you'll be found by your prospects because of our listings in the Directories of special interest magazines in the world.
A World-Wide Market - Eliminate the language barriers to more business. Your information will be available today in both Spanish and English. Soon we will add French, German. too.
A World of Choices - Free editorial coverage. Low price directory listings. Create a cost-effective co-site with a complete service description, photos, prices, location and contact information . Or, request full Website development. Choose the media presence that works for you and have it delivered from a single service provider.
Customized Marketing Support - Need a company or product logo? Need to integrate your web strategy into your marketing plan? Our strategic partner, Contract Marketing Associates, can do all this and more for you. They developed our image and travel planner functionality. Now, they are working on our business referral incentive program. Next stop, an online reservation system in the language of your choice. Got a challenge - give it to Contract Marketing Associates.
Low Cost - Make a marketing investment in your business growth. A simple single payment or affordable monthly installments will grow your business while providing profitable returns. Book a single two-night stay or tour each month through Explore Panama and your Co-site Homepage has more than paid for itself.

Cost Comparison

Total forecasted cost for web development and first year online service

Partnership Program

Directory Listing: Business name, price range, link to explorepanama page if purchased, contact info in relevant section (i.e.: Bocas del Toro, Services or Lodging) FREE

Business Card package: 100 word description, price range, contact info, link to web site $175/year

Co-Site Homepage: 2 Spanish + 2 English pages, up to 4 photos or graphics, hyperlinks and email links, email to fax conversion service available, monthly statistics on visitor use of your homepage $350/year plus one-time fee of $75 for setup

Custom Website Development: Project Design & Management. 4 page English + 4 page Spanish (Additional pages and language available for extra costs. Contact us for a quote.) $750 for development. Hosting charge extra.

Frequently Asked Questions

· Why is Co-siting more economical than owning my own small website?: Because the design follows a consistant format, plus we offer you a share of our unused internet service capacity. Custom websites have individual design costs plus have their own ISP accounts. Also, co-sites have the advantage of greater traffic and responsiveness - because they reside on a larger, busy site and do not require hyperlinks that can fail or be slow just when the prospect wants to know the details about your service.

· How do I compare Custom Web Developers?: First understand their costs. Do they charge by the hour or the page. We charge by the page or screen and include up to three pages of scroll down text with each page of design. This is both economical and allows us to give you a firm quote rather than an estimate. Second, you must like the quality of their work. Last, look at the cost of the Internet Service Providers the recommend and then check their customer satisfaction ratings. Good developers have good relations with good value.

· What if I don't have email as a form of contact?

People that find you on the web can easily email their reservation needs. It's faster and easier than fax or phone. If you don't have email, we can set up an "email to fax conversion" so that you can communicate via fax. Cost average $45/month and depend on the amount of traffic. Email accounts can be free with Hotmail or cost less than $20/month with complete web access, but, require the investment in a computer. EMachines cost less than $1000, but a slightly more expensive Pentium class is recommended, because it can do other business functions for you. A better PC can do the books, taxes, and handle the web-based reservation software we will offer.

· How do I know if I really might need my own expanded website?

Email info@webstrategists.net and ask for their Web Development Primer. It will tell you the six basic web strategies that apply to the marketing of your business…and more.

· What are the other costs associated with owning a website?

A website is just another media you use in marketing your business. Like magazine advertising or newsletters, "content is king". Good copywriting and photography are as important as good design and site engineering. You may spend as much in copy and photography as you do in development cost. These will most likely be done in house, but the value of the work should still be considered. Both copywriting and photography services are available from us to you on request. And if your site grows to be greater than 8 -10 pages, it will require project management. Budget $100 per function per page in Panama. Anything less would most likely be low quality.

What Your Future Holds - Explore Panama Release 2002

Our strategic partner, Contract Marketing Associates, will develop and offer through Explore Panama, the state-of-the-art online, guaranteed reservation system for hotels, tour operators, guides and sports packagers. Here are the high points of the system benefits for our Travel Panama Partners:

Low Cost / No Risk - There are no set-up fees or hidden costs. With no up-front costs, there's no risk. Members only pay a backend transaction fee significantly less than those charged by tour operators and agents.
Real-Time Reservations - Receive real-time reservations from multiple distribution partners, including Web sites and call centers. Customers receive immediate confirmations-- eliminate time-consuming e-mail, phone or fax requests.
Control Your Available Inventory - Update your content--property description, reservation policies, inventory availability, rates and promotions--daily and free of charge.
Easy to Use - No technical skills are required to receive reservations and update your availability--less than 15 minutes required each day. All you need is a PC and Internet access. For those not on line, we'll manage the system for you, communicating daily by fax.
Why should I list my property with Contract Marketing Associates's NetRes Service? Joining NetRes is a no-risk proposition for you. You'll be able to take real-time reservations 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in a variety of languages. Joining NetRes will allow you to reduce your marketing and reservation costs and improve your profits.
Do I have control of the inventory I place with NetRes? You have instantaneous control allowing you to change rates and close off or increase inventory, depending on your room or tour package surplus. You may also change your marketing messages for special weekend / weekday promotions or seasonal packages.
Is there a possibility of NetRes over-selling my inventory? No. You will always have complete control. You can adjust or close off inventory immediately.
Is the Internet or World Wide Web safe and secure for our reservations? The transactions are private, and we utilize the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol to secure the identity of the customer and the credit card used to guarantee and hold the reservation.

If I have more questions about advertising with Explore Panama, whom do I contact?

Please Contact: info@explorepanama.com