By the Caribbean Journal staff

Baseball legend and Panama native Mariano Rivera will soon be the face of Panama’s reenergized tourism push.

The former New York Yankees closer, who will inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame this weekend, will be at the center of a major new tourism campaign aimed at courting travelers to the country.

The campaign, under the concept of “switch off,” invites would-be tourists to visit the isthmus straddling the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.

“What is Panama?” Rivera says in the campaign. “It is a paradise, a relaxed place, of history, of adventures. It’s time to relax. And let’s go.”

The campaign, timed to launch with Rivera’s Hall of Fame induction, will be distributed across TV and social media.

Panama’s tourism sector is still very much inchoate, though it’s home to a diverse range of destinations from urban, energetic Panama City, a place with some of the best-value luxury hotels in the region (and its charming Casco Viejo old town) to an array of places to visit on the Caribbean Sea.

— CJ