When the Costa Rica Tourism Board decided to partner with Cirque du Soleil for the entertainment group’s show “ECHO,” they did so because the show explores the artful balance of the world around us, its nature and animals, and emphasizes the influence we can have in creating a better future and world we want to live in. Additionally, they thought it a perfect vehicle to attract a new generation of travelers.
After the pandemic, says Costa Rica Tourism Board’s Director of Marketing & Communications, Carolina Trejos, “we were very lucky to have the same base from North America come back [to the destination] very soon. But we started thinking about Costa Rica and how the destination has been invested in the States for several decades, and how people over 40 have a very strong knowledge of the destination, and we thought, well, we need to make sure that whatever we did, we will have all these same results with future travelers.” She notes it’s about presenting the destination’s plethora of delights in a new way. “We need to present it in a modern way, in an emotional way.
“We want to start a conversation about Costa Rica and that’s where partnerships such as the one with Cirque come in. We want to start a conversation about ‘Where is Costa Rica? Why Costa Rica? I think this is for me.’ Our goal is for these [young] families [who attend the Cirque show] to start visiting Costa Rica.”
In fact, she emphasizes, this Central America country is ideal for families because “we have something for everybody. We have the adventure, the hard adventure and the soft adventure, and you have the beautiful beaches, all in an environment where you can find the forest, the animals.”
Today’s Costa Rica offers a breadth of hotel infrastructure, with Trejos telling Recommend that, “We have a hotel property for everything your client might want. We are home to the big chains like the Marriott’s, the Hilton’s, the Four Seasons, and we keep growing our boutique hotels portfolio, which has always been a [hidden gem] for Costa Rica. Regarding boutique hotels, for travelers who came 20, 30 years ago, they’ll remember these types of hotels in Guanacaste, but now you can also find them in Monteverde and Arenal, plus the whole South Pacific is getting developed. And then the Atlantic in Tortuguero, which is in the north part of the Atlantic. There’s also a lot of new product in the center of the country with a focus on coffee and agriculture.”
She also notes that the country is developing four hotels in the area of Guanacaste: One&Only, Waldorf-Astoria, The Ritz-Carlton and Six Senses.
With that in mind, she also stresses that “we have the right product for the luxury traveler.” This is a destination that emits an intimate and exclusive vibe since it’s not very large, meaning it can welcome only so many tourists, thus the focus on attracting luxury travelers. “We’re a country of five million people, and we receive three million tourists a year, so we cannot grow that much more,” noting that if they were to grow too much, “then our product would not be what we want to offer.”
When it comes to its wellness offerings, Costa Rica dazzles. For us, she says, “we like to call it ‘Pura Vida’ wellness. When you think about wellness, you think about yoga and meditation and all that stuff, right? But for us wellness is in everything you do, like in the way you drink your coffee and the fruit that you have for breakfast.
“Obviously, we have the hard part of wellness, and we have a lot of good services and properties that are catered only for that, but wellness is everywhere you go. You’ll always find a trail, a waterfall, a coffee farm.”
Trejos says that the trade is very important to the destination because Costa Rica has many layers with myriad offerings. “From a trade perspective,” she says, “our focus is not only training, but also bringing [travel advisors] to the country. We know that the experience has to be lived 10 times in order to recommend. We know that Costa Rica’s not an easy destination to sell because it’s a complex destination. You can’t just go online and figure out what to do [when visiting]. You need that recommendation and that is where trade for us is very key.”
For more information, visit ict.go.cr/en and visitcostarica.com/en.
