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Positive News published in La Nacion. January 26, 2007
The Costa Rican Institute of Tourism (ICT) is launching an aggressive marketing and advertising campaign for fear that the economic recession in the USA will affect tourism here.
The ICT will invest $ 14 million in promotion, double the budget of 2007. The ICT plan for the United States is promoting Costa Rica as an exotic destination, close and cheap, compared with Thailand and other Asian countries. This advertising campaign will be over the Internet and through a public relations agency, which the ICT recently hired in New York.
Americans account for 54% of the 1.9 million visitors who arrived here during 2007.
In Europe, the second area of importance for attracting tourists, the ICT will intensify publicity. Russia, France and Switzerland are also promising markets for ICT expectations, according to Minister of Tourism, Benavides. Europe accounts for 17% of the visitors to Costa Rica, who are primarily Spanish, German, French, English, and Italian.
Exploration of Asian markets is on the agenda as well. Last year an agreement was signed with China, adding Costa Rica as a tourist destination.
The United States is the primary goal and Europe is a consideration.
The ICT predicts a growth rate of 6% in the inflow of tourists into the country in 2008, compared with 10.15% achieved last year.
Last year, seven new airlines began flying to Costa Rica, four American and three European. Costa Rica is now working to attract two new low-cost American airlines as well as a giant European airline interested in adding Costa Rica as a new destination
The option to fly to Costa Rica has increased by 675,000 seats. The number of seats available for travel here rose to 2.7 million, an increase of 33% over the last several years.I’m glad to see that the ICT is being pro-active regarding this new economic climate. I also think that some hotels may have to reconsider their prices in order to attract more tourists. I just came back from Turrialba which certainly is a beautiful countryside area of CR, the place had a beautiful view of the Turrialba Volcano and was near Guayabo National Monument, but not necessarily a tourist hotspot and I stayed at a hacienda hotel that cost over $150/night for a standard room (and checked into another hacienda type hotel that charged over $350/night). The hotel was lovely, with amazing views and their food was magnificent for sure; however, when I showed the pics to some NY friends they thought the place was beautiful, but that the rate was high. When I reminded them that NY rates are much, much higher they reminded me that other areas of Latin America have rates that are much, much less. The good news is that Costa Rica has many beautiful hotels, in many wonderful areas and the range in room rates offered does vary, but the trend has been to become more and more expensive in the last few years and I wonder if that will change now or if they will just gear their offer to Europe & Asia where money concerns may not be so prevalent…I guess time will tell…
Hi, I was in Tuurrialba this summer and stayed at a place that was clean and nice for it was either $20 or $25 per night. Now I will admit it was not a fancy place by any means but the point is that inexpensive places are available all over C.R. I do agree however, that the more up-scale places are quite pricey. I do think is the good ol Americans who have pushed the prices up at many of the hotels because they will pay the price and then it just goes up and up. However if you are willing to lower your sites I have spent 6 months traveling all over C.R. and in all cases I paid 35.oo or less per night. Clean, Safe and fairly good locations.
Terry From TexasLike I said before, there is a wide range of prices and this hotel I mentioned is truly not pricey compared to some I’ve seen at the beaches and even the Marriott in the Central Valley area that has raised it’s original prices by quite a bit since they first built the place. This stay was a B’day gift to me from my daughter who knew I would be staying nearby helping a mission and wanted to pamper me for a few days. They only had one night available and so that’s what she paid for, but as it turned out, I had dinner there with friends one night yet I didn’t end up spending the night in the room since I continued to stay with friends and then my friend G and I had breakfast there the next morning. The hotel was beautiful and close to the mission and the nearest “reasonably” priced hotels were in Turrialba city which was just too far away from where I wanted to be.
You’re right, you don’t need to pay high prices to have a good time. Just a few years ago I stayed in Playa Chiquita, Limon for $5/day (no kidding) and had lots of fun. Even this time my stay in Puerto Viejo was less than half the price of the Turrialba hotel and next to Salsa Brava so who could ask for anything more. The economic surge of the past few years allowed for the price increases which is why I was wondering if the economic downturn in the US will spur the hotels to rething their pricing…
It’s great to see Costa Rica is moving quickly toward protecting their greatest source of income. Most everything else takes forever for the government to wake up to. If they can apply this principle to other areas, you will see a totally different country in 10 years. Maybe some people won’t like that, but I’ll bet it works for the good of the nation. They are on the right track, I wish them well.
The more interesting aspect to this reaction to the recession is that it is hopeful and not pessimistic. Rather than hunkering down and looking for defensive ways to protect the country’s economic interests, this government is making an aggressive and what some might consider risky way of spending precious resources. Costa Rica is not the only country which is moving forward. If all you are listening to and reading here in the States is our media, you might think we were sliding down to the end of the world.
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