ANALYZING COSTA RICA AS A MODEL FOR THE
IMPLEMENTATION OF MARKETING
CERTIFICATION IN FIVE TARGET COUNTRIES
Authors: Martha Honey and Amos Bien
A publication of
Center on Ecotourism and Sustainable Development
The International Ecotourism Society (TIES)
February 2005
.
For:
Activity 3.1.4.2: Marketing certification
A component in the IDB-MIF project, “International Accreditation System and Consolidation of
National Systems for Sustainable Tourism Certification to Facilitate Small and Medium
Enterprises’ (SMEs) Competitiveness and Market Access”
Executive summary of certification marketing lessons learned
Costa Rica has become positioned in the world tourist market as a nature-based and ecotourism
destination, with a large component of complementary offerings in beaches and adventure
tourism (canopy activities, rafting, surfing, etc.). There is an additional component of allinclusive beach resorts, golf, and congresses and conventions. The country’s comparative
advantage has been ecotourism, but some of the market is shifting to more traditional resort
tourism. In order to preserve the country’s positioning, the Costa Rican Tourist Board (Instituto
Costarricense de Turismo – ICT) developed a sustainable tourism certification scheme for
lodging enterprises, called Certification for Sustainable Tourism (CST). This system was
explicitly designed to certify all lodging sectors, not just ecotourism, in order to motivate all of
the industry, including large beach and urban hotels, into exemplary environmental and
sociocultural practices and protect the country’s image as nature-friendly and conservationist.
CST became a prestigious program within the small world of certification and it was proposed
and accepted as possible system for all of Central America, but has now been restricted to Costa
Rica and the border areas of Panama and Nicaragua. There has been a strong desire expressed by
the ecotourism sector to develop a separate ecotourism certification based on CST. CST for tour
operators has been paralyzed for two years after its full development, and as of February 2005,
had not been released. It is likely that if it is not released during early 2005, some tour operators
will seek international certification, such as Green Globe 21.
Some confusion has ensued from the development of the Iniciativa Centroamérica Verde (ICV),
which is a Central American ecotourism marketing program whose entry requirements have
been confused in Nicaragua with a certification program. The country has also developed its
own Ecological Blue Flag program (BAE). An effort is now underway to try to make this
compatible with the international Blue Flag program of FEE, but only the highest level of BAE
is equivalent to Blue Flag international certification. Because both CST and BAE have been
developed and operated by the government, there are grave operational problems in cooperating
with external entities and giving the programs the necessary flexibility to compete.
While the tourist industry is looking for international recognition and compatibility, the
government agencies are unwilling or unable to fully cooperate with international accreditation
efforts, although CST has shared its criteria with the Certification Network of the Americas for
work on harmonization throughout the hemisphere. CST appears unable, for a number of
reasons, to participate in or promote the effective marketing of certified businesses.
The underlying reasons for Costa Rica’s inability to effectively market its certification programs
or extend their use (even though they are currently free of charge) is a direct consequence of
their development and ownership by the government. Government instances, such as the tourist
board’s legal department and internal audits, the controller general’s office (financial control),
and the procurer general’s office (legal control), have emitted highly restrictive and often
contradictory, but legally binding edicts effectively limiting the sort of marketing and
outsourcing that would make CST harmonize with other programs worldwide and effectively
promote certified businesses.
Among the lessons applicable to other countries and certification programs are a series of
positive and negative experiences. On the positive side:
! Development of the CST system through the government allowed it to be implemented
free of charge. This allowed the certification of a large number of hotels in the first
phase, even though there was not yet any market demand. This is a precondition for
establishing market demand. A similar phenomenon occurred with BAE certification of
beaches.
! The high credibility that CST achieved outside of Costa Rica was because of the use of
highly technical criteria and a certification-accreditation board independent of the
auditing and criteria development. Outside evaluation by credible, independent experts
also enhanced the value of the program.
! The difficulty of reaching the highest level of certification has had a strong positive
effect, in that it is obvious that the award is not given lightly, that the hotels that comply
at this level are exemplary, and these hotels themselves have become strong advocates of
the program.
! The many international sustainable tourism certification programs that have been based
in whole or in part on CST has enhanced the reputation of both CST and Costa Rica.
! These factors have led to growing industry demand for their own certification standards
within Costa Rica by tour operators and ecotourism enterprises. This has been in spite of
many hotels dropping out of the CST program.
On the negative side:
! Because government institutions in many developing countries lack credibility with
businesses and the general population, government sponsorship and operation of the
program caused it to be viewed with suspicion by many stakeholders. This is totally the
inverse of the situation of many certification programs in Europe and the United States,
where government sponsorship has enhanced the credibility of programs such as
EnergyStar, USDA organic, Nature’s Best, etc.
! The unwillingness of the government sponsors of the program to seriously contemplate
periodic revisions of the norm or full cooperation with national and international efforts
towards accreditation have undermined the credibility and goodwill of the program.
While part of this is because of bureaucratic and legal obstacles, more of it appears due
to fear of losing control of the program. This fear of changing a good thing has led to
negative perceptions of the program.
! The failure to release CST for tour operators, two years after its full development, has
lead to serious doubts in the industry about the seriousness of its sponsor’s commitment
and capacities.
! The numerous incidents in which the inability or unwillingness of CST and BAE
functionaries to travel to international meetings to which they have been invited and to
which they have confirmed participation has been interpreted outside Costa Rica as
arrogance and unwillingness to cooperate. This has also been true of important meetings
within Costa Rica, for which there should have been no institutional or bureaucratic
obstacles to participation.
! Inconsistent policy attributable to changes in the politically appointed minister of tourism
caused the program to lose inertia, as have budgetary and hiring restrictions imposed by
the central government on all institutions.
!
!
!
Bureaucratic slowness and inertia has caused frustration in the tourist industry in Costa
Rica, which has started to consider alternative certification programs.
Most seriously, the inability of the government sponsors of CST to comply with their
initial promises of extensive promotion and other incentives for certified businesses has
caused many businesses to drop out of the program, even though it is free of charge. This
inability is in part due to official government rules about government promotion of
private businesses, as well as budgetary and institutional difficulties.
The other most serious setback for the program in attributable to institutional uncertainty
about the legality of many actions and internal infighting. The resulting paralysis for
almost two years led to a loss of credibility within Costa Rica.
The lessons applicable to other programs might be summarized as:
! Government sponsorship can enhance credibility in those countries where the
government is perceived as honest, but not where this does not hold.
! Government sponsorship can reduce start-up costs and allow establishing an initial
critical mass of certified businesses.
! Government bureaucratic inertia, Byzantine rules, budgetary restrictions, and changes in
political leadership can stifle program development.
! Credibility is enhanced by cooperation with international efforts.
! Periodic revision and correction of certification standards and criteria enhances
credibility.
! Promising increases in occupancy and promotion through certification can be
counterproductive until such time as there is true market demand for certified products.
! In general, not complying with promises of incentives, services, or improvements leads
to loss of credibility.
Table of contents
1. Introduction................................................................................................................................. 7
A. Overview of the Tourism Market in Costa Rica .................................................................... 7
Table 1: Growth of Tourism in Costa Rica................................................................................. 8
Figure 2: Gross Income versus Income per Visitor .................................................................. 10
B. Overview of Certification Programs .................................................................................... 10
2. The International Tourism Chain.............................................................................................. 11
A. General international trends................................................................................................. 11
B. Trends within Costa Rica .................................................................................................... 12
C. Internet for booking tours..................................................................................................... 12
Table 2: Sites used by online travelers ..................................................................................... 13
Table 3: Use of the internet for travel purposes in the past 12 months .................................... 15
D. Outbound Tour Operators, Travel Agents and Wholesalers................................................ 16
Table 4: Services for Which Travel Agents Used ................................................................... 16
Table 5: Attraction to Costa Rican Tourism Market (direct quotes) ....................................... 17
Figure 3: Top Reasons for Entering Costa Rican Tourism Market .......................................... 19
Figure 4: Operators' Top Destinations other than Costa Rica .................................................. 20
Table 6. Self-categorization of Travel Market Niche ............................................................... 20
C. Airlines & Other Outbound Transport ................................................................................. 21
Table 8: Increase in visitors to Costa Rica arriving by air 2003-2004 (January-February) ..... 22
D. Cruises.................................................................................................................................. 23
E. Inbound Operators ................................................................................................................ 23
E. Ground and domestic air transportation ............................................................................... 24
F. Accommodations .................................................................................................................. 24
G. Tours & Attractions ............................................................................................................. 26
3. Sources of Information for Travelers:....................................................................................... 26
A. Guidebooks .......................................................................................................................... 26
B. Newspapers and Magazines ................................................................................................. 33
4. Marketing.................................................................................................................................. 33
A. Trade Shows......................................................................................................................... 34
Table 9: Expotur participants 2003........................................................................................... 35
C. Fam Trips/ Travel Press ....................................................................................................... 37
5. Government Policies towards Nature-based Tourism .............................................................. 38
6. Certification Programs in Costa Rica ....................................................................................... 40
A. Background to Green Certification ...................................................................................... 40
B. Early Certification Experiments........................................................................................... 41
C. Classifying Costa Rica’s Certification Programs................................................................. 43
D. New Key’s “Sustainable Tourism Rating” .......................................................................... 45
Table 10: CST Criteria for Hotels, Agencies, and Tour Operators .......................................... 48
E. The Scoring .......................................................................................................................... 49
Table 11: Levels of Sustainability ............................................................................................ 50
F. Business Buy-In.................................................................................................................... 51
Figure 5: Home Page from CST Website ................................................................................. 53
G. CST Marketing and Website................................................................................................ 53
H. Bottlenecks and Conflicts of Interest................................................................................... 55
I. Expansion & Reorganization Plans ....................................................................................... 56
J. Overall Assessment ............................................................................................................... 57
7. Evaluating Ecotourism in Costa Rica ....................................................................................... 58
8. Evaluating CST and Other Certification Programs .................................................................. 58
9. Conclusions............................................................................................................................... 59
10. Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 63
1. Introduction
This report describes in general and historical terms the evolution and development of Costa
Rica as a well-positioned nature tourism and ecotourism destination, as well as specific aspects
related to certification and marketing.
The consequences of Costa Rica’s success in nature tourism have been, among others, the
creation of general awareness among the general population of conservation as the country’s
strong point, wide distribution of quality tourism employment, with little concentration of
wealth, and a source of income for local communities whose employment and economic base has
shifted away from small farming towards agribusinesses, ecotourism, or unemployment.
While often benignly described as “the smokeless industry,” in reality tourism projects and
practices have caused enormous environment, social and economic damage, particular in poor
communities and fragile ecosystems. Costa Rica has been able, in part to minimize some of these
negative effects through its focus on nature-based tourism, although many beach areas of the
country have also been subject to uncontrolled and pernicious tourist development. While
general marketing efforts, such as the country’s “no artificial ingredients” campaign have helped
maintain its positioning, there is concern among many small and medium tourist businesses that
uncontrolled development could stain the country’s image. There has been wide support, as a
result, for establishing certification or other forms of guaranteeing that the certified businesses
can be differentiated by the market.
Unfortunately, although Costa Rica has been a world leader in the development of codes of good
practice and certification, the government institutions involved have, largely for structural
reasons, been unable to sustain a continuous effort or effectively market certified businesses.
This evolution, with the successes and the problems encountered may serve as guidelines or
lessons learned for other countries or destinations.
A. OVERVIEW OF THE TOURISM MARKET IN COSTA RICA
Costa Rica is one of a handful of destinations in the world where the entire country is marketed
as an ecotourism destination. Indeed, for many North American tourists, Costa Rica, a tiny
Central American country with a population of some four million, is the poster child for
ecotourism. Beginning in the late-1980s, as the wars in Central America wound down, Costa
Rica showed that it had the right ingredients to capture the ecotourism wave. These included
world-renowned national parks and private reserves, high level of biodiversity, strong scientific
and active environmental communities, political stability, a large and well-educated middle class,
good infrastructure, and relative proximity to the United States. Most date the start of the
ecotourism boom to 1987 when Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, the architect of the Central
American Peace Plan, received the Nobel Peace Prize. This event propelled tiny Costa Rica onto
the world stage, securing its image as a peaceful democracy with a unique political and social
history as well as its incredible natural beauty. As The New Key to Costa Rica states, “Costa Rica
once produced more bananas than any other country in the world, but it is far from being ‘banana
republic.’ Armyless, democratic, conservation-minded—people in many other developing
countries are fighting for what Costa Rica has had for years.” 1
Costa Rica has long been considered the bucolic exception – the Switzerland of Central
America—in a region typified by civil wars and military dictatorships. Costa Rica has long been
the region’s only stable, peaceful, truly democratic, and relatively prosperous country. As far
back as 1840, U.S. anthropologist John L. Stephens noted on a visit that Costa Rica was an
island of tranquility compared with the rest of Central America. In 1869, the Costa Rican
constitution established free, obligatory education; in 1882, Costa Rica abolished capital
punishment; and in 1948, it took the profoundly-significant twin decisions: to abolish the army
and to nationalize the banks. Over the next several decades, as its neighbors suffered with
military coups, guerrillas, death squads, and corrupt oligarchies, the Costa Rican government
maintained a small, lightly armed, and largely benign police force and it funneled public
resources into quietly expanding the hemisphere’s most successful social welfare state, including
high quality public health care, good public transportation, loans and subsidies for small farmers,
and free university education. 2
Beginning in 1969, Costa Rica also began creating a network of national parks and protected
areas. Today, almost 13% of Costa Rica is protected within national parks and biological
reserves. 3 In addition, there are several hundred privately owned nature reserves. Costa Rica’s
extraordinary natural wonders are encapsulated in the statistic that the country contains 5 percent
of the world’s biodiversity within just 0.035 percent of the earth’s surface. Though just the size
of West Virginia, Costa Rica has more bird species (850) than the U.S. and Canada combined, as
well as 6000 kinds of flowering plants and 35,000 species of insects. As former Costa Rican
minister of natural resources Alvaro Umaña put it, Costa Rica is a biological “superpower.” 4
TABLE 1: GROWTH OF TOURISM IN COSTA RICA
1976
1996
2001
2003
Total arrivals*
299,039
781,127
1,131,406 1,238,692
Air arrivals
127,208
560,026
812,022
927,705
Gross receipts
$57 million $654 million $1.1 billion $1.2 billion
Receipts per air visitor
$448
$1,168
$1,349
$1,292
* Total arrivals includes immigrants from Central America, who are not tourists.
Source: ICT Department of Statistics and Investigations
On these stable foundations, the tourism industry has flourished. Until the mid-1980s, Costa
Rica’s tourism industry was modest, largely locally owned, and geared to domestic and regional
visitors. Between the mid-1970s and mid-1990s, the number of foreign visitors nearly doubled
and gross receipts grew more than 11-fold. (Table 1 and Figures 1 and 2.) By 1994, tourism had
1
Beatrice Blake and Anne Becher, The New Key to Costa Rica (Berkeley, CA: Ulysses Press, 1997).
Ibid.; Martha Honey, Hostile Acts: U.S. Policy in Costa Rica in the 1980’s (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1994) pp.
4-10.
3
Amos Bien, “Environmental Certification for Tourism in Central America: CST and Other Programs, “ in Martha Honey, ed.,
Ecotourism and Certification: Setting Standards in Practice (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2002), p.134. For an excellent
history of Costa Rica’s parks see David Rains Wallace, The Quetzal and the Macaw: The Story of Costa Rica’s National Parks
(San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1992).
4
Martha Honey, “Costa Rica: On the Beaten Path,” Ecotourism and Sustainable Development: Who Owns Paradise?
(Washington, DC: Island Press, 1999), pp. 131-181. For an excellent history of Costa Rica’s parks see David Rains Wallace,
The Quetzal and the Macaw: The Story of Costa Rica’s National Parks (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, p. 1992).
2
become the country’s number one foreign exchange earner, surpassing both bananas and coffee.
By 2000, Costa Rica was receiving over one million visitors a year. Surveys showed that about
60% of tourists were motivated primarily by ecotourism, another 20% reported visiting a
national park or ecotourism facility during their stay, and the country was earning over $600
million from ecotourism and nature-based attractions, out of more than one billion dollars in
tourist income. 5 As Figure 2 shows, below, income per visitor grew as fast as the number of
visitors, reflecting the high prices of ecotourism attractions and increasing quality of service.
FIGURE 1: COSTA RICA: TOTAL VISITOR ARRIVALS
1,400,000
1,200,000
1,000,000
800,000
Total visitors
Air arrivals
600,000
400,000
200,000
19
76
19
79
19
82
19
85
19
88
19
91
19
94
19
97
20
00
20
03
0
Year
Source: ICT Department of Statistics and Investigations
But with success came a growing concern that Costa Rica was attracting too much of the wrong
kind of tourism development and that this was going to “kill the goose that lay the golden egg.”
Despite its international reputation for ecotourism, in practice the government pursued a twotrack policy of supporting both ecotourism projects and conventional urban hotels and beach
resorts, with the balance of new contracts tilted towards large, foreign-owned projects. In the
mid-1980s, the ICT passed legislation aimed at wooing foreign investment in tourism through
providing tax breaks and investment incentives for hotels, air and sea transportation companies,
car rental agencies, and travel agencies. These included exemptions from property taxes and
import duties for construction and remodeling materials, as well as vans, boats, dune buggies,
and other vehicles used for tourism. To qualify, however, facilities needed to have over 20 rooms
and conform to strict standards on furnishings and use of space. “These restrictions often
precluded local people from qualifying for incentives,” noted anthropologist Carole Hill. 6
In spite of these limitations, the ecotourism sector of Costa Rica’s tourist industry continued to
grow rapidly. The growth of the ecotourism sector, which is largely high income per visitor (as
shown in Figure 2) dramatically improved the macroeconomic situation of Costa Rica. The
5
Amos Bien, “Environmental Certification for Tourism in Central America,” in Martha Honey, ed., Ecotourism and
Certification: Setting Standards in Practice (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2002), p. 146.
6
Carole Hill, “The Paradox of Tourism in Costa Rica,” Cultural Survival Quarterly, 14, no. 4 (1990): 17; Honey, Ecotourism
and Sustainable Development, pp. 144-146.
financial sector rapidly recognized this development and financed the construction of many
ecolodges throughout the country. Belatedly, long after the country’s reputation as a nature
destination had become well established and it had become exceedingly well-positioned in the
international market, the ICT came to recognize the importance of small-scale businesses and
ecotourism for the country. Two parallel tracks were then established to enhance this positioning
and protect Costa Rica’s privileged reputation: a highly successful promotional campaign based
on the motto “Costa Rica: no artificial ingredients”, as well as the development of a certification
program for sustainable tourism, CST.
FIGURE 2: GROSS INCOME VERSUS INCOME PER VISITOR
$1.800
$1.600
$1.400
$1.200
$1.000
$800
$600
$400
$200
$0
Gross income ($ millions)
19
76
19
79
19
82
19
85
19
88
19
91
19
94
19
97
20
00
20
03
Income per air visitor
Year
Source: ICT Department of Statistics and Investigations
More than any other country, Costa Rica has successfully ridden the ecotourism wave, and has
continued, with just minor dips, to stay on its crest despite the storm that has buffeted the tourism
industry. Today Costa Rica is viewed as the leader in both ecotourism and certification designed
to measure the environmental and social impacts of tourism.
B. OVERVIEW OF CERTIFICATION PROGRAMS
Certification was thus developed with the twofold objective of motivating businesses and
communities to implement sound environmental and social practices, while increasing
occupancy and income through promotion. There are two extant certification programs in Costa
Rica, although a number of others have developed and disappeared. Both current programs were
developed by visionary government functionaries and are operated by the government. They are
CST, the Certification for Sustainable Tourism for lodging establishments, and Bandera Azul
Ecológica (BAE) for beaches and communities. In addition, there is the Iniciativa
Centroamérica Verde (ICV), which is a Central American-wide ecotourism marketing program
whose entry requirements have been confused in Nicaragua with a certification program. All
three programs have some degree of participation from the Tourist Board (ICT), but CST was
wholly developed and implemented by ICT. These programs are discussed at length in section 6,
“Certification Programs in Costa Rica”.
2. The International Tourism Chain
A. GENERAL INTERNATIONAL TRENDS
Tourism is a complex industry, with its various components found in virtually every country
around the globe. Analyzing the marketing chain that delivers tourists to destinations involves an
examination of some dozen different types of components. In the country of departure, the
tourism industry includes travel agents (retailers), tour operators (wholesalers and often
retailers), airlines, cruise lines, car rental agencies, credit card companies, public relations firms,
advertising companies, Internet companies, tourist bureaus, and the media. In the host country,
the industry includes inbound tour operators, ground transporters, guides, accommodations,
restaurants, national and private parks, recreational facilities (such as golf courses, ski resorts,
and beaches), cultural and craft centers, and special attractions and concessions (white water
rafting, balloon rides, biking, sailing, snorkeling, and fishing).
In addition, the travel industry while largely private, is also shaped by a mix of government, aid
and development agency, and NGO policies and, increasingly, funding. Tourism is supported by
government policies and regulations, national tourism bureaus, infrastructure (roads, airports,
harbors), and frequently, direct government subsidies, as well as by a wide array of commercial
banks and international financial and aid institutions.
Internationally, the two most important international agencies overseeing tourism are the World
Tourism Organization (WTO) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), both of
which have programs on Sustainable Tourism. The United Nations Development Program
(UNDP) also supports small-scale tourist development in developing countries. In addition,
particularly with the rapid increase in economic globalization and free trade policies over the last
two decades, tourism is regulated or shape by international trade agreements and organizations
such as the World Trade Organization, the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS),
and the North American Free Trade Agreement, as well as by global forums and institutions
such as the Convention on Biodiversity, World Forum on Social and Sustainable Development,
World Parks Congress, World Economic Forum, and World Social Forum. These include
intergovernmental bodies and gatherings, private sector, NGO, and increasingly a mix of all
three.
Since World War II, and with accelerated speed since the 1960s, there has been an increasing
consolidation within the tourism industry. Despite the fact that as much as 90% of tourist
businesses are small and medium-size, the industry’s earnings overall are dominated by
transnational corporations. The primarily economic agents in international tourism – hotels,
airlines, travel agents, tour operators, and in certain regions such as the Caribbean, cruise lines –
are increasingly integrated in terms of their services, financing, management, and research and
development. As the industry has expanded into developing countries, it has sought to
standardize the infrastructure and services. “Given their late entry into the field, “ writes Thanhdam Throng, “many developing countries have limited possibilities to develop their own stock of
knowledge and control over the business. They have had to adopt that established standards and
therefore must rely on foreign firms to run major sectors of the industry.”
Ecotourism has challenged these trends and calls for a paradigm shift in the way the industry
operates. Costa Rica, more than most other countries in the global South, entered into ecotourism
with many of the requisites to buck these trends. As described above, Costa Rica had many of
the right ingredients – an extensive national and private parks network, tremendous biodiversity,
democratic and stable political institutions, good infrastructure, strong public services, and a
healthy, educated work force, and the largest per capita middle class in the hemisphere—that has
helped it to fend off the total onslot of international firms. But, over the last two decades,
globalization and international tourism industries has still made considerable inroads.
B. TRENDS WITHIN COSTA RICA
Traditionally, the travel and tourism business for countries such as Costa Rica depended on a
chain of businesses connecting the traveler with the services in the host country. Much of this
fairly complex, but well-structured commercialization chain has all but disappeared since the
advent of the Internet. The traditional structure consisted of:
(a) small, unspecialized retail travel agencies in the developed countries,
(b) wholesale consolidators,
(c) outbound specialized tour operators for specific destinations or special interests,
(d) airlines,
(e) inbound tour operators,
(f) ground transportation providers, and
(g) host country hotels and lodges.
Commissions were offered by the final destination providers (hotels and tours) to all
intermediaries.
Two phenomena have contributed to radical changes in this structure since about 2000: (1)
Airlines have reduced or eliminated the commissions paid to retail travel agencies. These
agencies have had to become specialized and sell tour packages or, in most cases, disappear. (2)
The Internet has permitted end-users, the tourists, to obtain information and make bookings at
lower cost, directly at any stage of the commercialization chain. As a result, the market share for
retail agents has almost disappeared, and has been sharply reduced for outbound tour operators
and consolidators. Service providers in the host countries (hotels and tours) most now pay
sharply increased commissions (25-40%, up from 15-20%), while promotional budgets from the
smaller tour operators for advertising and printed catalogues have been reduced. Those
businesses unable to pay heavy commissions are now generally excluded from this
commercialization chain.
C. INTERNET FOR BOOKING TOURS
Starting in 1995, Costa Rica’s tourist industry has become increasingly dependent on the Internet
for both promotion and bookings. This trend parallels that in the rest of the worldwide tourist
industry, although Costa Rica has better positioning, as well as more penetration and access in
rural areas than most other developing countries. Only Belize, in the developing countries of the
Americas, has a better-developed web presence for tourism. As the role of tour operators
diminishes, more and more tourists book their travels directly through the Internet, and this has
favored Costa Rica. Many small ecotourism businesses conduct nearly all of their promotion and
business through the Internet and e-mail. Those businesses in isolated rural communities or
indigenous areas, however, often do not have websites or Internet access. In some cases,
networks of small community-based, cooperative, or indigenous tourism businesses have been
able to supply the necessary expertise and centralized access, reservations, and promotion.
Nevertheless, for unaffiliated independent small and microbusinesses, lack of access and
expertise can be a serious barrier to success.
Companies are responding to these trends by increasingly relying on the Internet for their own
advertising and promotions. The last two decades have seen a dramatic shift away from printing
and mailing and towards the Internet and electronic communication. A 1987 study of natureoriented tour operators that conduct tours to developing countries found that they were doing
their advertising and promotion in the United States mainly through magazines (94%) and
brochures (91%) In addition, 60% used direct mail, 66% used travel and trade shows, and 56%
used newspaper advertisements. Use of the Internet and electronic distribution was not even
ranked. 7
Today the Internet represents the future of the travel industry, according to nearly all the
major indicators. Travel sold online was “the leading and fastest growing category of ecommerce, accounting for over 45% of all online sales,” according to Jupiter Media
Metrix survey in late 2002. The survey found that nearly 60% of the online population in
North America (192 million in
TABLE 2: SITES USED BY ONLINE TRAVELERS!
2002) were using the Internet to
research travel, and of those
Planning Travel!
Booking Travel!
researching travel information
Search engines!
62% Company sites!
51%!
online, 50% actually were
making their purchases online. Destination sites! 51% Commercial sites!
39%!
The other 50% looked online,
Company sites!
48% Search engines!
32%!
but booked offline. 9 A similar
sites include cities, towns, etc.
survey by the Travel Industry Commercial sites! 36% Destination
Company sites include airlines, hotels, airlines, etc.
Commercial sites include Expedia, Priceline, etc.!
Association of America (TIA)
Source: Travel Industry Association of America 8
found that the number of
Americans using the Internet to
plan and/or book travel jumped 25% between 2001 and 2002. Airline tickets are the most
frequently purchased travel products online (77% of all purchases), followed by
accommodations (57%) and are car rentals (37%). Among online bookers, 30% said they
spend $2500 or more in the past year on online bookings. 10 “It's obvious from the
increased use by American travelers that the Internet and online services have become a
powerful part of the travel experience," said William Norman, TIA President and CEO.
"The convenience of the Internet and its 24-hour accessibility offer travelers flexible
options for researching, planning, or booking the travel product." 11
According to the Jupiter Media Metrix study, $24 billion is spent annually on travel bookings in
2002. The growth rate has been phenomenal, as just $276 million was spent in 1996. By 2007, it
is estimated the figure will climb to $64 billion or 22% of all travel bookings. 12
7
8
Denise Ingram and Patrick Durst, “Nature-Oriented Travel to Developing Countries,” FPEI Working Paper No. 28 (Research
Triangle Park, N.C.: Southeastern Center for Forest Economics Research, October 1987), p. 6.
Pastore, Ibid.
Juniper Media Metrix, “The Industry,” 2002, website: http://www.visualfrenzy.com/industry.html.
10
Travel Industry of America, press release, “Online Travel Booking Jumps in 2002, Despite Plateau in Online Travel Planning,”
December 9, 2002.
11
Michael Pastore, “Online Travel Planning, booking Continue to Rise, February 14, 2000, website:
http://cyberatlas.internet.com/markets/travel/article/0,1323,6071_304111,00.html
12
Juniper Media Metrix, “The Industry,” 2002, website: http://www.visualfrenzy.com/industry.html.
9
Further, while many Internet companies in other categories have failed, travel sites such as
Expedia and Travelocity have been thriving. Both became profitable in 2001 and their revenues
have steadily increased since then. 13 The most popular types of Internet sites for trip planning are
search engine Web sites such as Yahoo!, Excite, or Lycos, according to TIA. While just over half
of online travel planners use destination sites, nearly half use company sites such as hotels,
airlines, car rental or packaged tour sites. Slightly over one-third of online travel planners use
commercial sites such as Microsoft Expedia, Travelocity, Priceline.com, and Sidewalk.com.
Even though online travel is the largest Internet commerce category, it is still only a fraction of
estimated worldwide travel sales. “The potential for growth is staggering,” commented James
Kissane, a senior official with the investment banking and brokerage firm Bears Stearns. “If you
can capture even a fraction of the overall spending numbers, you can do extremely, extremely
well.” 14
Costa Rica’s Internet Use
In Costa Rica, as well, the Internet’s importance has grown exponentially over the last five years
and is an increasingly important tool for the travel industry as well as for tourists. Beatrice Blake,
who conducted a survey for this study of lodge owners’ use of the Internet 15 , writes that “as a
guidebook author, I have been acutely aware of the revolution in how tourism businesses make
contact with clients. Guidebooks used to be the primary source of information for tourists, but
more and more they are taking second place to the Internet.” She continues, “Just doing a Google
search recently netted 14,200 responses for ‘Costa Rica vacation’, 29,600 for ‘Costa Rica travel,’
and 606 for ‘Costa Rica ecotourism’.”
Blake sent out a questionnaire to 100 Costa Rican hotels, all of whom had been rated by either
the CST program or by her own New Key to Costa Rica program. She received 19 replies, mostly
from smaller hotels. The respondents estimated that 65% of their inquiries come from the
Internet, although quite a few mentioned that people also read about them first in guidebooks and
then inquire on the Internet. Of the respondents, 70% said that their most important Internet
source is their own website. Fourteen of those who replied said they receive about 20% of their
inquiries from other websites. Those who benefited most from other sites used ones related to
their respective niche markets, such as yoga magazines. But, Blake concludes, that despite the
“plethora of group sites, the vast majority of businesses [who responded], see them as
unimportant.” (Since Blake concentrated on small lodges, this may not be the case if a broader
swath of the market were surveyed.)
In terms of actual bookings, the respondents reported that, on average:
! 35% come from the Internet
! 20% from travel agencies
! 20% from word of mouth
! 15% from guidebooks
13
Based on research by Brad Weiss, graduate student, George Washington University’s Travel Studies Department, November
2003.
14
Pastore, Ibid.
15
Beatrice Blake, “Internet Use Survey,” emailed to 100 certified Costa Rican hotels, August 2003. Responses collected during
that month from 19 hotels.
!
10% from repeat clients
This roughly mirrors the breakdowns found in the U.S. surveys sighted above. Blake reports that
“one of the most telling changes” is that 55% of respondents said they do not use print
advertising at all. For those that do, print advertising accounts for less that 5% of their bookings.
These trends are very recent. Respondents to Blake’s survey stated that they had had their own
web pages on average for only four years. Six of the respondents said that traffic to their website
had increased on average 432% in the last five years. Others reported it had increased “a lot” or
“significantly” and all said the amount of traffic is going up each year. The number of hits per
month varied widely: by a wide margin Lapa Rios, probably the best known ecolodge in Costa
Rica, averaged the highest, with 450,000 hits per month; the next highest received about 20,000
per month. Seven hotels reported getting around 400. However, half the respondents said they
did not know how many hits they were getting, revealing, Blake concludes “the lack of Internet
savvy of many respondents.” Those who responded to the survey reported spending an average
of 30 hours per month working on the Internet and their own websites.
In a 2004 study on U.S. travelers likely to visit Costa Rica, the Menlo Consulting Group found
that “Internet use among American travelers is now almost universal” and that 93% of the “best
U.S. prospects for Costa Rica” have access to the Internet, up from 78.4% in 1999.16 They report
that they most frequently visit airline, hotel, and online travel agency websites such as
Travelocity or Expedia. While over half of those surveyed say they have purchased airline tickets
or booked hotel reservations, few report purchasing either cruises or group tour packages on line.
This probably reflects the fact that more experienced and independent travelers tend to be more
Internet savvy and are likely to be less interested in cruises or group tours.
TABLE 3: USE OF THE INTERNET FOR TRAVEL PURPOSES IN THE PAST 12 MONTHS
(Costa Rica’s Online Prospects) 17
To find low airfares............................................................................. 75.1%
To learn about events, performances, exhibits, etc., for a trip............ 74.8%
To learn more about a place I am planning to visit............................. 71.7%
To find a place to stay......................................................................... 59.9%
To purchase airline tickets .................................................................. 59.7%
To make hotel reservations ................................................................. 52.1%
To get ideas about places to visit someday......................................... 46.9%
To make car rental reservations .......................................................... 39.4%
To access travel-related bulletin boards.............................................. 35.8%
To purchase tickets for events............................................................. 35.8%
To purchase a cruise.............................................................................. 8.2%
To purchase a group tour or vacation package ..................................... 5.7%
16
Menlo Consulting Group, Americans as International Travelers:TravelStyles 2003-2004 Progam: Focus on
Costa Rica, prepared for the ICT (Palo Alto, CA: Menlo Consulting Group), February 2004. Menlo Consulting
surveys ”best prospects” which it defines as “individuals who have traveled outside the continental United States
for pleasure in the past three years, who say that they are extremely or very interested in visiting Costa Rica, and
who plan to travel to Central or South America for pleasure at some time in the future.” p. 4. Menlo has prepared
surveys on Costa Rica for the ICT since 1994.
17
Ibid., p. 32.
Earlier surveys support the view that Costa Rica’s best prospects are more independent
travelers. According to the Menlo survey conducted in 2001-2002, only 22% of
prospective visitors to Costa Rica prefer organized, escorted tours, while 78% design
their trips on an impromptu basis (23%), with a custom designed unescorted package
(28%), or on off-the-shelf unescorted package (27%).18! !
D. OUTBOUND TOUR OPERATORS, TRAVEL AGENTS AND WHOLESALERS
As Internet bookings have increased, the use of travel agents and tour operators has continued to
drop. The Menlo study for 2003-2004 found that few than half (46%) of Costa Rica’s best
prospects said that they are “extremely” or “very” likely to use a travel agent when taking an
international vacation. 19 This is down from just over half – 51% -- in 2001-2002 and 65.8% in
1999. 20 The vast majority of those using travel agents – 95.8% -- do so to purchase or reserve
travel rather than to plan a trip or decide whether or not to visit a destination. 21
The 2001-2002 survey did find, however, that "there is still a market for knowledgeable travel
agents" and tour operators. 22 Nearly half (47%) agreed strongly or mostly with the statement, "If
I were traveling to a destination for the first time, I would seek out an agent who specializes in
that destination." Another 33% agreed somewhat. 23 Most said they had used a travel agent or
tour operator for the logistics of the trip: when to travel, what to see and do during a trip, which
cruise line or airline to use, which tour or vacation package to buy, and which hotels to stay in.
TABLE 4: SERVICES FOR WHICH TRAVEL AGENTS USED
To purchase airline tickets........................................... 61.8%
To purchase group tour, cruise, package .................... 48.2%
To arrange hotels or other lodging .............................. 40.2%
To plan itinerary........................................................... 21.6%
To help decide on destination ....................................... 8.6%
(Number of respondents = 301)
Source: Menlo, Americans as International Travelers, 2001-2002, p. 38
The survey concluded that "agents are still very influential when it comes to recommending tour
or vacation packages, hotels, and airlines." 24 It found that four-fifths of Costa Rica's best
prospects were likely to ask an agent for advice on which tour or vacation package to purchase or
which hotel to stay in, and two-thirds are likely to ask advice on which airline to use.
18
Menlo Consulting Group, Americans as International Travelers, 2001-2002, prepared for
the ICT (Palo Alto, CA: Menlo Consulting Group, Inc), 2003.
19
Ibid., 2003-2004, p. 29.
20
Ibid., 2001-2004.
21
Ibid., p. 30.
22
The Menlo surveys make no distinction between travel agents that sell retail packages and
tour operators offer their own unique branded package tour and/or customized trips.)
23
24
Ibid., p. 37.
Ibid.
In a survey of U.S. and Canadian tour operators carried out in 2002 specifically for this study,
Emma Stewart selected 53 tour operators in the United States and Canada who sell tours to Costa
Rica. While initially all expressed a willingness to collaborate, ultimately 29 operators completed
the questionnaire. The questions included a range of topics regarding the main attractions Costa
Rica offers; what type of tourism tour operators are selling; size and profits of their company;
how important is Costa Rica in their business; what is the profile of their tourists; what airlines,
Costa Rican tour operators, ground transportation, and accommodation they use; what is the
average length of stay and most common activities in Costa Rica; what information do they
provide their clients on the environmental and/or social practices of the company; and is the
company aware of CST and does it strive to utilize certified businesses in Costa Rica. The survey
yielded a rich tapestry of data on Costa Rica's nature-based tourism industry which Stewart
compiled in a series of graphs and charts.
Survey Findings
Those surveyed included a variety of tour operators: nature-based, adventure, educational, and
non-profit organizations (university, museum, conservation, etc.). Unlike the travel agents selling
retail tours which appear to have been the focus of the Menlo studies, Stewart select the best
known tour operators offering their own brand or packaged tours or customized trips. More than
travel agents, tour operators, because of the depth of their knowledge and their customized, high
quality offerings, are widely considered important conduits for nature-based, ecotourism, and
educational travel to Costa Rica. The companies surveyed by Stewart had operated in Costa Rica
anywhere from over 20 years (Journeys International and Mountain Travel-Sobek) to those of
who had entered the Costa Rican market in the last two or three years (iExplore, Academic
Travel Abroad, and Adventure). The average was almost 10 years.
Asked why they entered the Costa Rican market, the vast majority -- 23 of 29 -- listed the
country's natural history, flora and fauna, and conservation ethic. Table 5 summaries the
comments from the tour operators, while Figure 3 ranks the importance of the various reasons:
TABLE 5: ATTRACTION TO COSTA RICAN TOURISM MARKET (DIRECT QUOTES)
Company
Academic Travel Abroad
Attraction to Costa Rica Tourism Market
Adventure Life
“Established demand and availability of tourism services
that met our criteria of small scale, family run, nature
oriented experiences.”
“Home to approximately 860 species of birds and more
than 1,100 species of orchids as well as numerous
national parks and reserves.”
“It seemed like an appropriate market for the type of
active travel vacations we offer. We were able to find the
right mix of upscale accommodation, beautiful scenery
and activity to put together several types of itineraries
including walking, cycling and watersports.”
“Stable government, no military and rainforest
preservation which means that there would be free
Audubon Nature Odysseys
Backroads
Battenkill Canoe
“Natural history, safety, good accomodations, good
guides”
Canoe Costa Rica
Costa Rica Connection
Costa Rica Tours
Elderhostel
Expo Garden Tours
Iexplore
Intl Adventures Unltd
IPEE Spanish Language School
Journeys International
Lindblad Expeditions
Lost World Adventures
Mountain Travel-Sobek
National Geographic Expeditions
Natural Habitat Adventures
Preferred Adventures
S&S Tours
Scuba Voyages
Smithsonian Study Tours
Southern Horizons
Voyagers International
Walking the World
Wildland Adventures
flowing clean rivers.”
“Rivers, wildlife, protected areas, reputation”
“Specialty market”
--“New market at the time with good prices”
--“Exciting adventure market, especially given the rainforest
environment.”
“All the partners in the business had an expertise that
revolved around the Costa Rica market in some way. It
also was an up and coming travel market and posed a
fruitful opportunity to develop a product that was not
widely available – Custom Private Adventures.”
“Opportunity to educate others”
“Accessible rain forest, tourism infrastructure, educated
naturalist guides, not far from the USA.”
“Natural richness, remoteness, wildlife, wildness,
environmental and ecological diversity. Or as defined in
some of our most recent promotional literature, our
objective is…”to give you a more complete experience of
a country that is committed to the respectful, even loving,
stewardship of the natural treasures it contains”. And we
mean it all.”
“The ecotourism trade”
“Easy access from US; friendly, peaceful country;
nature/wildlife destination; ecologically acceptable
development for tourism.”
“Rainforest, wildlife, conservation emphasis”
“Excellent wildlife and natural history great infrastructure.
Safe country to visit.”
“1982 volunteer project to promote nature tourism in
Costa Rica”
“The wonderful natural history”
“Diving & ecotravel”
“Costa Rica was perceived by our members as an
outstanding natural history destination that was
reasonably close and reasonably priced.”
“First because I’m Costa Rican and know the country,
second because back then it was a great opportunity
since few companies knew the country and we had the
opportunity of a better market place, today that is not the
case.”
“The biodiversity and the diversity of offerings in a country
so small.”
“Highly promoted as ecotourist destination, warm climate,
safe, friendly people, moderately priced, variety and
beauty of country.”
“Rainforests and other tropical natural habitats, national
parks and corresponding international reputation for
conservation, relatively good infrastructure especially
including operators, trained guides, boutique hotels.”
“I had been to Costa Rica personally and thought it
offered the right mix of active, adventure travel that I
wanted to offer my customers. In addition, I had contacts
to local operators to operate our trips there.”
“Diversity, natural history, consumer interest.”
Worldwide Escapes
Zegrahm Expeditions
FIGURE 3: TOP REASONS FOR ENTERING COSTA RICAN TOURISM MARKET
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
16
7
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5
Of the 29 companies surveyed, only three specialize solely in Costa Rica. Of the rest, nine sell
tours worldwide, while the rest a heavily focused on Latin America (particularly Ecuador, Peru,
and Belize), but include a wide range of other countries. (See Figure 4)
FIGURE 4: OPERATORS' TOP DESTINATIONS OTHER THAN COSTA RICA
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
Worldwide
Ecuador
Belize
Peru
US & Alaska
Panama
British Isles
New Zealand
E & Southern Africa
Guatemala
Mexico
Argentina
Chile
Italy
Morocco
Arctic region
S.America (in general)
Bolivia
France
Japan
China
Egypt
Nepal
Canada
Turkey
Central American (in
Asia (in general)
Brazil
Switzerland: 1
Netherlands
Norway
Greece
South Africa
Australia
Thailand
Turkey
Tanzania
India
Kenya
Mediterranean (in
Caribbean (in general)
Europe (in general)
0
The outbound operators were asked how they would describe the types of tours they run, from a
list of nine categories. The majority chose those categories most associated with nature and
ecotourism: adventure travel, ecotours, customized tours, and educational travel. Only one listed
pre-paid package tours, and one other cruise travel. (Lindblad described its tours as "adventure
travel" even though its operations in Costa Rica, as elsewhere, is via cruise boats.) These
findings are in line with those in the Menlo surveys which include profiles of the “best
prospects” and travel preferences.
TABLE 6. SELF-CATEGORIZATION OF TRAVEL MARKET NICHE
Mountain Travel-Sobek
Pre-paid package tours
Battenkill Canoe
Adventure travel
Customized tours
IExplore
Lindblad Expeditions
Walking the World
Worldwide Escapes
Preferred Adventures
Mountain Travel-Sobek
International Adventures Unlimited
Lost World Adventures
Costa Rica Connection
Canoe Costa Rica
Wildland Adventures
Southern Horizons
Expo Garden Tours
Costa Rica Tours
Voyager International
Mountain Travel-Sobek
Ecotours
Adventure Life
Audubon Nature Odysseys
Journeys International
Natural Habitat Adventures
Cruise travel
Educational study travel
Zegrahm Expeditions
Elderhostel
Academic Study Abroad
National Geographic Expeditions
Smithsonian Study Tours
IPEE Spanish Language School
Cultural exchange
Backroads ('Luxury Active')
Luxury travel
Specialized sports travel Scuba Voyages
C. AIRLINES & OTHER OUTBOUND TRANSPORT
The vast majority of international travelers -- over 70% -- arrive in Costa Rica by air.
In 2000, 16 airlines were offering regular scheduled flights to Costa Rica, with three – American
Airlines (12.3%), TACA (22%), and Continental Airlines (12.3%) bringing in over half the total
arrivals. By 2004, the number of airlines and direct flights had increased dramatically. Over 80%
of arrivals come from North America. 25
Of all foreign visitors to Costa Rica, 1,113,359 in 2002 26 , an estimated 254,573 were considered
economic or family visits from much poorer Central American countries. This leaves
approximately 858,786 potential tourists to Costa Rica, although some of these are business
travelers and others are conducting family visits, in both cases often combined with tourist
activities. Of this group, 798,548 arrived by air. Arrivals stabilized in the period 2000-2002, but
show some increase among Europeans and substantial decrease among South Americans.
Nevertheless, there has been a dramatic increase in tourist arrivals by air between 2003 and
2004: 26.7% increase overall, more or less equally distributed over North America (32.4%),
Europe (22%), and South America (18.4%). Airline executives have attributed this increase to
the consolidation of the new airport in the Guanacaste beach region -- visitors arriving in San
José increased by 22.4%, while those to Guanacaste increased by 81%. They have also cited the
increasing difficulties for tourists to visit the United States as tourists or in transit. Neither
hypothesis withstands deep scrutiny, however: First, as Table 5 shows, the increase in visitors
25
Christ Inman, Tourism in Costa Rica: The Challenge of Competitiveness, Latin American
Center for Competitiveness and Sustainable Development (CLACDS), March 2002, pp. 68-69.
26
ICT Anuario Estadístico (2003).
arriving in San Jose far exceeds the total number of visitors to Guanacaste. Secondly, the
greatest increase in visitors was from the United States, so this cannot be attributed to problems
in entering the United States. Other more likely reasons are that Costa Rica is considered a safe
destination, far from terrorism and crime, that the cost of airfares have gone down while direct
service from the United States has increased, and Costa Rica retains a strong appear as as a
nature destination that also offers beaches, volcanoes, and a friendly culture.
TABLE 7: INTERNATIONAL ARRIVALS BY AIR TO COSTA RICA BY COUNTRY AND YEAR 27
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
TOTAL
511,250 559,436 581,264 560,026 581,558 669,453 734,158 800,795 812,022 798,548
% change
9,4%
3,9% -3,7%
3,8% 15,1%
9,7%
9,1%
1,4% -1,7%
NORTH
AMERICA
Canada
U,S,A,
Mexico
289,369 317,713
9,8%
42,691 47,064
231,745 251,969
14,933 18,680
329,937
3,8%
39,318
272,151
18,468
309,781
-6,1%
33,452
255,439
20,890
327,081
5,6%
34,223
268,906
23,952
396,917
21,4%
39,062
329,042
28,813
440,748
11,0%
41,677
368,644
30,427
475,769
7,9%
47,166
396,909
31,694
486,998
2,4%
47,947
403,775
35,276
481,948
-1,0%
45,048
400,758
36,142
CENTRAL
AMERICA
Guatemala
El Salvador
Honduras
Nicaragua
Panama
52,062 53,779
3,3%
15,213 14,620
9,618 10,044
7,178 7,822
8,532 8,602
11,521 12,691
54,764
1,8%
15,624
10,642
7,563
8,677
12,258
55,760
1,8%
16,379
10,627
7,310
9,085
12,359
60,169
7,9%
17,908
11,985
8,141
9,357
12,778
67,149
11,6%
22,853
12,637
7,778
10,023
13,858
70,262
4,6%
22,746
13,026
8,058
10,791
15,641
71,677
2,0%
22,171
14,803
9,402
10,729
14,572
66,533
-7,2%
19,102
14,385
9,226
9,155
14,665
65,942
-0,9%
19,739
14,812
7,472
8,838
15,081
6,637
4,8%
6,392
-3,7%
7,420
16,1%
8,544
15,1%
8,907
4,2%
8,724
-2,1%
8,710
-0,2%
8,304
-4,7%
CARIBBEAN
5,321
6,333
19,0%
SOUTH
AMERICA
47,956 49,205 53,556 53,516 53,822 63,308 66,291 87,608 95,221 81,902
2,6%
8,8% -0,1%
0,6% 17,6%
4,7% 32,2%
8,7% -14,0%
EUROPE
103,735 117,696 118,665 115,067 112,652 112,621 124,533 131,879 129,872 136,725
13,5%
0,8% -3,0% -2,1%
0,0% 10,6%
5,9% -1,5%
5,3%
OTHER
ZONES
12,807 14,710 17,705 19,510 20,414 20,914 23,417 25,138 24,688 23,727
14,9% 20,4% 10,2%
4,6%
2,4% 12,0%
7,3% -1,8% -3,9%
TABLE 8: INCREASE IN VISITORS TO COSTA RICA ARRIVING BY AIR 2003-2004 (JANUARYFEBRUARY) 28
Total
San Jose
Guanacaste
GRAND TOTAL
27
28
Absolute Percentage Absolute Percentage Absolute Percentage
change
change
change
change
change
change
43.733
26,7
34.292
22,4
8.546
81,0
ICT Anuario Estadístico (2003)
ICT Departamento de Estadísticas
North America
Central America
Caribbean
South America
Europe
Asia-Middle East
Africa
33.769
218
253
2.432
6.505
363
32,4
1,9
16,7
18,4
22,0
11,8
25.187
-243
249
2.321
6.242
353
26,8
-2,2
16,6
17,6
21,3
11,6
20
16,9
17
14,5
8.297
9
-2
15
212
9
81,3
13,0
-22,2
166,7
98,6
32,1
D. CRUISES
The cruise industry, the icon image of mass tourism, has been increasing slowly in Costa Rica
and today represents a potentially serious challenge to Costa Rica’s reputation for small-scale,
low impact ecotourism. In 2000, 23,937 tourists arrived in Costa Rica in cruises, representing a
mere 2.2% of total arrivals. 29
The following sections describe the structure and ownership of the receptive (inbound)
tourist industry in Costa Rica, including lodging, with a view towards determining patterns
of ownership, and hence “leakage” of foreign exchange earnings out of Costa Rica. In may
developing countries, leakage is reported to reach 80% or higher, whereas in Costa Rica at
least one study indicates that the figure is less than 20%. Ownership patterns also have
direct implications in capital available for international marketing and for implementing
good management and environmental practices, as well as in employment and distribution
of income.
E. INBOUND OPERATORS
Costa Rican based tour operators play an extremely important role in the country's tourist
industry. In a 1999 draft report on ecotourism in Costa Rica, a research team from INCAE
randomly selected 40 US and European tour operators and travel agencies to survey with two
questions:
(1) how the company arranges their ecotour packages (through a Costa Rican agency or by
the company itself) and
(2) the final price of a randomly chosen ecotour.
Ten of the 40 companies (or 25%) answered and, in responding to the first question, 100% said
that their ecotourism were arranged by a Costa Rican inbound tour operator.
Nearly all of the largest inbound tour operators and ground operators are owned by Costa Ricans
or permanent residents in the country. For example:
29
Christ Inman, Tourism in Costa Rica: The Challenge of Competiveness, Latin American
Center for Competitiveness and Sustainable Development (CLACDS), March 2002, p. 68.
! CR Expeditions
! Horizontes
! CR Sun Tours
! Swiss Travel
! CR Temptations
! TAM Travel
Gray Line Tours, however, uses an international trademark for its franchise and is believed to be
partly or largely foreign-owned.
This applies also to regional or specialized inbound and ground operators, such as: Sunset Tours,
Original Canopy Tour, Costa Rica Outdoors, etc. Some of these are owned by long-term foreign
residents, others by Costa Ricans.
The small and medium-sized San Jose-based companies that deal with both foreign inbound and
domestic travel are also owned by Costa Ricans or long-term residents:
! Arenas
! Selva Mar
! Aventuras del Sol
! Travel Agency Uno
! Destination Costa Rica
! Travel Excellence
! Discovery Travel
! Taxi Tours
! Explore Costa Rica
! Ocarina Expeditions
! Fantasy Tours
! Ecolé Travel
E. GROUND AND DOMESTIC AIR TRANSPORTATION
Most transportation within Costa Rica is by ground, because of the small size (51,000 km2) and
extensive road system of the country. Ground transportation for tourism is provided by a network
of public service bus companies to prime destinations, 15 to 25-passenger microbuses owned by
local transportation companies or by the inbound tour operators, and by rental car companies.
Except for rental-car companies, nearly all ground transportation is Costa Rican-owned, with the
possible exception of Gray Line Tours. A large percentage of automobile rental companies are
franchises of large multinational companies. Proportions of true ownership are closely guarded
and are not publicly available, as a franchise may be wholly, partially, or not at all foreignowned, and company ownership is not in the public record.
Domestic air transport is shared by SANSA and Nature Air. SANSA is wholly owned by TACA
airlines, which in turn is partially Costa Rican owned, but controlled by Salvadorians. Nature Air
is owned by foreign residents in Costa Rica. Air transport is to the major tourist destinations that
are three hours or more from San José by land, as well as to a few border areas of Nicaragua (and
soon, Panama).
F. ACCOMMODATIONS
The growth of tourism in Costa Rica can be inferred by measuring the thickness of the spine of
The Key to Costa Rica. In 1980, the spine was 0.6 cm thick. By the ninth edition in 1990 the
spine was 1.1 cm thick, by 2000 the book reached its all time thickness of 2.8 cm. The greatest
growth in thickness came between 1991 and 1997, after which a uniform thickness has been
maintained.
Twenty years ago, beach tourism in Costa Rica meant staying at a small, locally-owned place
that probably had a dance hall or a restaurant nearby. Rooms were small, beds were lumpy, baths
were shared, water was cold, towels were not provided. Atmosphere was minimum. Costa
Ricans would come and camp on the beach and pay local home owners to use showers and
toilets. In isolated beach areas there would often be a foreigner with a small hotel with slightly
better amenities.
In the last twenty years a number of Europeans have set up excellent small hotels in beach areas:
Italian, Swiss, French, and German. Clients, both domestic and international, expect much higher
standards than before, and are willing to pay corresponding prices. Unfortunately, this often
translates into a sterile, motel-like atmosphere.
Beginning in the 1990s, large international chains moved in. The most important are Best
Western (U.S.), Barcelo (Spain), Sol Melia (Spain), Marriott, Hilton (Hampton Inn) (U.S.), the
Salvadoran Camino Real, and the European Occidental chain. Best Western, Barcelo, and
Occidental appear to operate by buying or forming a franchise relationship with already existing
hotels that have potential to meet their standards. Barcelo has done this in Golfito, Jaco, San
Jose, and Orosi, in addition to building and operating its two of its own hotels in Playa Tambor
and San Jose. Best Western franchises seem to pop in and out of Costa Rica. Hotel Punta Cocles
south of Puerto Viejo used to be a Best Western, as was the Tamarindo Vista Villas and Hotel El
Sitio in Liberia. This sector of the tourist business is one of the few areas where foreign capital
dominates and where there is substantial leakage of tourist income to other countries.
Some of the foreign-owned chain hotels have been involved in environmental controversies.
Spanish-owned Barceló first completed a long-abandoned half-built hotel in San José without
proper permitting, and used this model of ignoring local legislation when they built their first
beach hotel at Playa Tambor. This led to a controversy that lasted many years and seriously
damaged the image of the hotel and its owners. The opposition to the hotel alleged that it had
destroyed mangroves, burned out the homes of the original residents who refused to be bought
out, and ignored coastal regulations. The national government’s position was that the hotel was
largely in compliance, and court cases remained inconclusive. The final result was that the local
community lost in their attempts to require environmental restitution, won some minor monetary
compensation, but the owners of the chain became acutely aware of the need to protect their
environmental and social image. As a result, the hotel has made an effort to comply with Costa
Rica’s program Certification for Sustainable Tourism (CST). However, the certification of the
Hotel Playa Tambor has caused image problems for the certification program.
In many beach areas, foreign ownership or concessions on land have overwhelmed local
ownership. Although concessionaries in the coastal zone must be Costa Rican or have a number
of years of Costa Rican residency, this nominal requirement does not seem to have slowed the
velocity of foreign acquisition of control of beach land. This is widely viewed by Costa Ricans
as a displacement of the country’s sovereignty over its own resources. Nevertheless, there is no
official effort to slow the tendency. Inland, foreign ownership has not been perceived as a serious
problem, but the imitation of successful ecotourism businesses, by both Costa Ricans and
foreigners, can overwhelm a destination.
The combination of large international hotels and popular beach destinations can change the
flavor and nature of both the visitors and the destination’s orientation. Blake notes, "It can
happen with whole regions, like Manuel Antonio, La Fortuna, Cerro Plano near Monteverde,
Punta Uva, Tamarindo or Tortuguero, where suddenly the exploitation of the eco-reputation of a
place explodes into too many businesses wanting to imitate the success of the original, principled
businesses. This, coupled with lack of planning, can mean that sustainable hotels are suddenly
part of unsustainable communities." Here too, in the uncontrolled beach development, there are
many non-resident foreign owners, but less leakage of income abroad because the economies of
scale are smaller than for large hotels and all-inclusive resorts.
In general, more than 80% of Costa Rica’s rooms are in establishments of 40 rooms or less.
Lodging of this size is almost invariable locally owned (Costa Ricans or long-term residents),
because economies of scale do not favor remote control of operations of this size.
G. TOURS & ATTRACTIONS
Adventure tourism is a sector in which Costa Ricans have really come to the fore in the last
decade. White water rafting, started in the late 1970s by Costa Rican Expeditions which is
owned by expatriate New Yorker Michael Kaye, is now is competing with the Costa Ricanowned Rios Tropicales, Aventuras Naturales, Amigos del Rio in Manuel Antonio, and Aguas
Bravas in Sarapiqui, among many others. After the North-American-owned Original Canopy
Tour became successful, the Costa Rican-owned Sky Walk and Sky Trek moved into first place
in Monteverde. Aerial Adventures, and Monteverde Canopy Tour are also Costa Rican-owned.
More than 200 canopy-based tours now exist in Costa Rica, largely locally-owned. The Costa
Rican-owned Selva Mar is a leader in hiking and birding, especially in the south, and the CRowned Horizontes is probably the most respected ecotourism company in Costa Rica. Beatrice
Blake notes, "I do not think that these companies are controlled by Costa Ricans from the
wealthy elite. They are mostly smart, conscientious conservationists who have learned from
foreign colleagues and have built their own businesses." Even the adventure tour operators with
initially foreign roots have generally become long-term Costa Rican residents.
3. Sources of Information for Travelers:
A. GUIDEBOOKS
Guidebooks have long been the staple source of information for tourists. The number of
guidebooks on Costa Rica has grown to mirror the growth of the country's tourism industry. By
the early 2000s, bookstore travel sections were typically stocking up to a dozen Costa Rican
guidebooks, plus specialized books on birds, short stories, national parks, rivers, retirement and
living in Costa Rica. In addition, several guidebooks are published within Costa Rica, including
the annual Tico Times guidebook and The Real Costa Rica: Your Community-based Tourism
Guide, now in its second edition.
Costa Rican guidebooks date back to the 1970s. Costa Rica--the Inside Scoop was first
typewritten and published by Jean Wallace, the mother of Beatrice Blake, in 1976. For the 1978
edition she changed the name to The Key to Costa Rica. It was partly a compilation of her
monthly newsletter, Costa Rica Info Report, which she had published since 1973. When Wallace
died in 1982, Blake took over, updating the book in 1983, 1984 and 1985. By then, Ellen
Searby's Costa Rica Traveller and Paul Glassman's Costa Rica were out. In 1985, Anne Becher
contacted Blake because none of the existing books were helpful for students like herself, and
she was thinking of writing a new guidebook, with bus schedules and more about ecology,
sociology, etc. Blake recalls, "All her ideas made me more excited about doing the book, so I
hired her and we rewrote The New Key together, bringing out a revamped version in 1986. By
1990, the tenth edition of the New Key was #1 on the Publisher's Weekly List of "Guidebooks to
Warm Weather Destinations." At that point, Lonely Planet, Moon, Fodor's and Frommer's started
getting interested. The publication of guidebooks mushroomed after that, and by the late 1990s,
New Key had been muscled aside by the larger companies.
In late 2002, Lonely Planet's Costa Rica guidebook (5th edition) was listed as the first place bestselling travel guidebook to Latin America at Amazon.com, Lonely Planet's Costa Rica
Phrasebook ranked fourth, and Frommer's 2003 edition ranked sixth. Ingram Distributors listed
Lonely Planet, Moon, Fodors, Frommers, Rough Guide and New Key as its top sellers, in
descending order.
These leading guidebooks to Costa Rica can be divided into two categories. The 850-page Moon
Costa Rica Handbook, 592-page Lonely Planet, and the 300-page Exploring Costa Rica of the
Tico Times provide comprehensive coverage of almost all lodgings and tourist attractions that
exist. They serve ecotourism by mentioning small and locally-owned businesses that might not
get mentioned in the more selective Fodor’s and Frommer’s. The New Key to Costa Rica is
somewhere in between: being selective and yet, at 540 pages, more comprehensive than Fodor’s
and Frommer’s. But even though Fodor’s and Frommer’s mention fewer locally-owned places,
they include a large percentage of lodges that are regarded as responsible by the New Key.
For the purposes of this study, these books are analyzed on two criteria: how they discuss
ecotourism or sustainable tourism and whether they discuss any of Costa Rica's certification
programs.
!
Moon Handbook’s Costa Rica by Chris Baker, 2001 edition
No one can beat Chris Baker for detail, and he focuses considerable attention on both
ecotourism and environmental issues. Adopting TIES's definition, Baker defines ecotourism as
"responsible travel that contributes to conservation of the natural environment and sustains the
well-being of local people by promoting rural economic development." In general, Baker
mentions environmental and community issues whenever possible in his almost encyclopedic,
850-page book. He goes out of his way to mention small, locally-owned places, and communitybased ecotourism. "The majority of group tours to Costa Rica," writes Baker, "are operated by
companies with a genuine concern for the quality of your experience and the impact on the local
environment. That means relatively small groups of no more than 20 people, escorted by a
trained guide, often a professional naturalist..." (p. 131).
Baker includes many environmental comments in his descriptions. He includes a box on "The
Destruction of Costa Rica’s Coral Reefs" in his Talamanca section (p. 394), discussing the
effects of logging, hotel development and offshore oil exploration. (In 2002, following public
protests, Costa Rican President Abel Pacheco announced no oil or natural gas drilling would be
permitted.) In his description of Barry Biesanz’s wood crafts, he says "Don’t fuss over the
demise of the rainforest. Biesanz is promoting reforestation by giving away rosewood and other
saplings" (p. 260).
Before describing the many varieties of wildlife that can be observed, he spends 10 pages
discussing conservation problems and possible solutions and lists twenty local and international
conservation organizations, as well as volunteer opportunities (pp. 18-28) and a special section
on "Saving the Macaw" (p. 52).
Baker also devotes considerable space to Costa Rica's drift (or shift) towards large scale,
conventional tourism. In the last paragraph of his introductory chapter, "Why Costa Rica?",
Baker writes: "Costa Rica has no Acapulcos or Cancuns scarring the coast with endless discos,
concrete beachfronts, and vast high-rise condominiums, though this is changing. Megaresorts...are sprouting along the jungled shoreline like mushrooms on a damp log. As a result the
demographics of who is visiting Costa Rica is moving away from ecotourists toward those
seeking beach package vacations, with the sad results that many small, charming hotels are
hurting for business. ...As the word spreads, more people come and more big developers are
drawn. Go now, before Costa Rica is spoiled."
Baker finds Costa Rica's tourism record as mixed. While he mentions the training of local guides
in Tortuguero and Playa Grande as examples of good practices (p. 84), he quotes tour guide and
environmentalist Guillermo Canessa as saying that less than 3% of the profits earned by tour
companies and hotels in Tortuguero actually benefit the local community (p. 84). He quotes
Kurt Kutay, owner of Wildland Adventures and a former Peace Corps volunteer in Costa Rica,
as saying: "We are really concerned about the direction tourism is taking in Costa Rica" (p. 82).
He also quotes Sergio Guillen, information officer for the Ministry of Planning in the Calderon
administration (1990-94) as stating that 40% of the habitable coastline was owned by foreigners:
"We are selling our land to the highest bidder, and the government doesn’t seem to care." In fact
this figure is undoubtedly low: Other experts estimated that 80% of beach land was owned by
foreigners, and today the figure may be as high as 90% (Honey, Protecting Paradise, p. 134;
Blake, personal communication.)
Baker's discussion of certification is, unfortunately, limited, somewhat out of date, and confusng.
He quotes the guidelines for ethical tourism of the Institute for Central American Studies'
Department of Responsible Tourism which briefly existed in the early 1990s and includes a box
for "Reducing Your Personal Environmental Impact" (p. 176).
In his "Accommodations" section, Baker mentions the CST, but in a confusing way: "Those
concerned to stay in ‘environmentally conscious’ accommodations have been presented an easy
means of identifying appropriate properties through the government’s Eco Seal program: a
standardization system for recognizing hotels that meet certain environmental standards." It is
unclear what Baker is referring to since there is no "Eco Seal" other than the CST's logo. He then
goes on to state, "A better yardstick is the Certificate for Sustainable Tourism (CST)
...introduced in 1999, which grades hotels by both environmental and cultural attributes. For
hotels to earn acceptance, they must have 70 percent native species in their gardens, provide an
educational component for guests, contribute to local communities, and meet strict criteria for
recycling and energy efficiency. Of the original 100 hotels graded in 1999, only three, Finca
Rosa Blanca, Arenal Observatory Lodge and (questionably) the Herradura earned top marks."
In fact, several other hotels have earned "top marks" and his list of the CST's criteria is far from
complete.
!
Lonely Planet Costa Rica, 2000 edition
This best-selling guidebook shows its commitment to ecotourism in its many simple, natural
photographs of local working people -- kids playing soccer in the street, a cowboy from
Guanacaste, a typical fruit stand, clothes hanging out in front of a small farmhouse, a milkman, a
woman carrying bananas on her head. Concern for nature is also shown in its 35-page guide to
Costa Rican wildlife, also with color photos.
Author Rob Rachowiecki contrasts true ecotourism with those who exploit its image (p. 24),
devotes two pages to major environmental problems and conservation, and gives guidelines for
responsible tourism (p. 40). Like Moon, Lonely Planet contains many sidebars highlighting
special ecotourism experiences or discussing environmental phenomena such as the
disappearance of the Golden Toad or the problems with the horseback ride to Monteverde from
Arenal. While Baker does a good job of describing environmental issues, Rachowiecki seems
more motivated by a genuine love for the wildlife.
Rachowiecki does not discuss the CST or any other certification programs because he is not
personally keen on certification programs and rating systems. In a letter to Blake, he wrote,
"…To avoid giving a worthy place a black mark by omission, I won't bring special attention to
eco-places with green stars or green leaves or green fishes or green Martians. But those readers
who dig a little bit will find some guidance."
!
Exploring Costa Rica, 2002 edition
The Tico Times’s yearly 300-page Exploring Costa Rica gives very brief descriptions, prices,
and contact information for almost every tourism business in the country. The rest of their
information consists of practical tips and cultural insights. It does, however, include a box for
"Ecolodging: Choosing the Environmentally Friendly Path" which states in part: "Your
individual choices about where to stay and what to do can play an enormous role in the
ecotourism industry. When choosing lodging or tours, look beyond the name -- all manner of
‘eco-tours’ and ‘eco-lodges’ have sprung up, and in some cases the ‘eco’ prefix is no more than a
marketing tool" (p. 133). The guide goes on to quote the TIES guidelines for what to look for in
ecolodges and tour companies and to that mention that the ICT has "a hotel rating system for
environmental friendliness" and to direct readers to the CST website (p. 133). It also has sections
on Blue Flag ("Bandera Azul"), as well as the challenges to biodiversity (p. 84).
Fodor’s Costa Rica, 2002 edition
This edition has been updated by George Soriano, Jeffry Van Fleet and Carol Weir, all former
Tico Times reporters with a good knowledge of the country. In contrast to the butterfly on the
cover of the Moon Handbook, and the scarlet macaws on the cover of Frommer’s and Exploring
Costa Rica, Fodor’s has a birdwatcher on the cover, in full regalia, standing on a hanging bridge
with his binoculars. All the photos that begin the book are of natural or cultural subjects-- no
babes in bikinis here!
!
Fodor’s has a brief section on Ecotourism in its Travel Tips chapter at the back of the book, in
which it outlines responsible practices. It also devotes half a page to deforestation and another
half to responsible travel (p. 247). The authors advise tourists to eat at local restaurants and shop
at local shops, but they mention precious few of them. They encourage tourists to "stay at lodges
that contribute to environmental efforts and to nearby communities" (p. 248), but they don’t say
which those are.
There is no mention of the CST. Yet, perhaps because the authors of the book are former Tico
Times reporters and have lived in Costa Rica, the hotels that they recommend are mostly
responsible, good-practice businesses. About half of the hotels on the New Key to Costa Rica
list made it into the limited list of hotels that Fodor’s recommends in each area. This Foder's list
includes three times more New Key recommended hotels than CST rated accommodations.
Blake muses, "Since I traded several copies of the New Key for my subscription to the Tico
Times, it could be that the Fodor’s authors were influenced by the New Key green rating. It
would be interesting to find out."
! Frommer’s Costa Rica, 2002 edition
Of all these guidebooks, Frommer’s mentions the least about environmental problems, and has
no explicit discussion of ecotourism or certification. Author Eliot Greenspan starts out his list of
"The Best of Costa Rica" by saying: "…Tourism has become the nation’s number-one source of
income. Despite the boom in vacationers, Costa Rica remains a place rich in natural wonders and
biodiversity, and far from the madding crowds. Here, you can still find unsullied beaches that
stretch for miles, small lodgings that haven’t attracted hordes of tourists, jungle rivers for rafting
and kayaking, and spectacular cloud and rain forests with ample opportunities for bird watching
and hiking. Perhaps the biggest sea change in recent years has been the opening of a handful of
large luxury resorts" (p. 4).
Introducing his list of "Best Ecolodges", Greenspan writes: "Generally, outstanding ecolodges
and wilderness resorts are set apart by an on-going commitment (financial or otherwise) to
minimizing their effect on surrounding ecosystems and to supporting residents of local
communities. They should also be able to provide naturalist guides and plentiful information"(p.
16). All of Frommer's seven best ecolodges are on the New Key list. Moreover, he mentions a
full two-thirds of the New Key-rated hotels in his pages, more than Fodor’s, and four times more
than the number of CST rated accommodations mentioned.
Greenspan is a good friend of Anne Becher and her husband, Joe Richey, whom he credits in his
Acknowledgements with being "instrumental in getting me this gig." So even though he doesn’t
go into environmental problems that much, his whole orientation is toward nature tourism and he
seems to be exercising good judgment in selecting the places he recommends. Blake writes, "I’m
sure that The New Key was his original introduction to Costa Rica, so his book, even though it
mentions more high-end places than Fodor’s, still is informed by The New Key's philosophy."
! The New Key to Costa Rica, 2002 edition
The New Key's 16th edition lists locally-owned hotels and tourism wherever possible and
mentions environmental or tourism-related problems in each regional section. It also devotes one
page of its 4-page introduction to ecotourism, followed by a 4-page chapter on its "Sustainable
Ecotourism Rating" which includes 81 accommodations (pp. xvii - xx). As discussed in the
section of Costa Rica's certification programs, in the early 1990s, New Key pioneered the first
eco-rating system in Costa Rica with the aim of distinguishing accommodations adhering to
strong environmental and social practices.
In comparing the CST and New Key rated hotels, Blake finds that CST lists 14 of the lodges
found on the New Key list of 81. Four New Key hotels are in the CST’s top five (four leaves), six
New Key hotels are in the CST’s three-leaf category, and three are in the CST’s two-leaf
category. One is in the CST's one-leaf category. The CST lists 60 hotels in all.
There are about 23 lodges that are on the New Key list that are left out of Fodor’s and
Frommer’s. Blake states that "about two-thirds of these are not "boutique hotels", but are locally
owned nature lodges that perhaps lack style, but definitely represent committed conservation
efforts in the Costa Rican community. Among these are places like Rancho La Merced in Uvita,
Poor Man’s Paradise, Mirador Lodge and Cabinas Jademar in Drake Bay, Durika Reserve near
Buenos Aires, Monte Alto Reserve near Hojancha in Guanacaste, Linda Vista del Norte Lodge
near Arenal, and Mirador San Gerardo in Monteverde."
Blake and her publisher, Ulysses Press of Berkeley, California, are in the process of reformatting
the New Key so that it concentrates solely on "sustainable ecotourism." Blake writes, "I envision
a book that would publicize good green projects, and also be a source of best practices that could
be referred to in setting standards for ecotourism by all the people who look to Costa Rica for
inspiration."
! The Real Costa Rica (Costa Rica Autentica), 2003 edition
This publication, now in its second edition, is an attempt to promote exclusively the small scale,
community-based projects that are designed to directly help communities benefit from
ecotourism. This booklet is highly attractive, bilingual, affordable ($10), and designed for
backpackers and other low budget travelers, as well as those interested in intimately exploring
life in rural Costa Rica. It written and published jointly by the UN Development Program and
Cooprena, a local NGO which provides technical training and support to community-based
projects.
The Real Costa Rica does not mention certification, but it does include the "Code of Ethics for
Responsible Tourism" put out by Tourism Concern (p. 11). The authors do leave projects out
which they do not think are worthy of inclusion. So there is a general standard applied. By mid2003, none of these accommodations had been certified by CST, although several are among the
backlog of places waiting to be audited. It is widely recognized, however, that CST may be too
complex and the bookkeeping demands too strenuous for many of these small, community based
places.
Unlike a guidebook, The Real Costa Rica does not comment on the quality of each tourism
project. Rather it serves the purpose of acquainting readers with the variety of community-based
options that exist, and it attempts to describe the best points of each one. Because these projects
are the "babies" of the authors, they want to promote all of them pretty much equally, even
though the quality of all the projects is not equal. It therefore does not really help the traveler
choose. In contrast, as discussed in the Internet section, Blake has evaluated the quality and
service of these projects and included several of the best on her website
(www.keytocostarica.com/community-based-ecotourism.htm).
!
Conclusion
The writers of these guidebooks are uniquely knowledgeable about the countries they write
about. Most have lived in Costa Rica or spend several months there updating each new
edition. Because they are required to update their publications regularly, they see places and
communities over time, and thus are more aware than others of the changes tourism can
bring. But pay for guidebooks is notoriety minimal so that they must be assembled quickly
and often through getting free accommodations at the places visited. This can compromise
the ability of writers to make critical comments about tourism facilities.
In summarizing her analysis of these guidebooks, Beatrice Blake states that they all "promote
sound ecotourism by recommending places that, at least by New Key standards, are
performing responsible ecotourism. Lonely Planet, Moon, the Tico Times book, and The New
Key have specific sections on how tourist behavior and choices can effect the environment
and they also promote sound ecotourism by mentioning more humble, locally-owned hotels
than Fodor's or Frommer's. The last two books are more selective, but they serve to orient
readers toward sound ecotourism more reliably than the CST does."
Blake quotes Canadian ecotourism consultant Pam Wight as saying, "My great fear is that
certification efforts will increase the gap -- will increase the benefits to the most
sophisticated and advantaged operators and destinations, and will leave the disadvantaged
where they are, or worse, will leave them behind altogether." Blake argues that "encouraging
selective guidebooks like Frommer’s and Fodor’s to add more locally-owned places to their
listings might avoid this problem."
Many promoters of certification argue that guidebooks could be a much more effective
instrument for helping to market sustainable and certified products. However,
Beatrice Blake, who can claim the mantel as both a long time guidebook writer and one of
the creators of Costa Rica's first sustainable tourism certification program, sees difficulties in
guidebooks basing their recommendations on CST, at least as it is currently conceived. Blake
writes:
"Guidebook writers would be willing to promote certification if the certifying program
delivered results consistent with the writers' knowledge and experience. As it is now, writers
cannot use the CST as a guideline because it leaves out most of the best practice hotels in
Costa Rica. If there were a system that most hotels believed in and participated in, even the
small, locally-owned and community-based ones, then guidebook writers might find
certification useful to share with their readers.
"Certification can never replace one service that guidebook writers perform, which is the
subjective experience of a place: warmth, atmosphere, and dedication. A big problem with
certification programs is that hotels can learn how to follow all the rules and yet be lousy
places to spend a vacation. That is an advantage of the New Key system, but it can't be made
to be scientific, as we tried to be in 1993-96."
"With certification, frequent updates must be built into the system, and that costs money. For
several years, for instance, the CST listed four businesses that no longer exist. They have
recently removed them. Guidebook writers know that the quality and atmosphere of a hotel
can change dramatically with a change in staff, ownership or management. We have also
seen the small charming hotels that become so successful that they expand to a point where
they lose their character and even their sustainability (La Selva Verde in Sarapiqui, or El
Establo in Monteverde). Guidebook writers will pick up and transmit those changes, but
certification systems will not. If certified hotels are given publicity and marketing
advantages, but their ratings are not consistently updated, this would be a disservice to the
consumer, and negatively impacts the reliability of certification."
B. NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES
Costa Rica has a number of Spanish-language daily newspapers and one English weekly, The
Tico Times. Two of the principal dailies, La Nación and La República, dedicate significant space
to tourism and some related environmental issues. Their orientation in travel information is
strictly towards the domestic tourist market, which has been in great expansion since recession
and terrorism affected international visits after 2001. Many hotels never demonstrated interest in
the Costa Rican domestic tourist market because of its lower purchasing power and supposed
lack of interest and education in ecotourism. After 2001, however, a large number of businesses
discovered that the domestic market could fill empty rooms and tours, even when international
arrivals dropped. Although these rooms are often heavily discounted (40% on average, according
to the ICT), marginal costs are often low after receiving a certain percentage of international
tourists who pay the full-price.
The Tico Times orients its tourist information towards both the international market of Englishspeaking visitors and towards resident foreigners. Articles provide a mix of information for
newcomers and long-time residents.
Both the dailies and the Tico Times tend to separate travel information from editorial coverage
and news on environmental information related to tourism. The Tico Times and La República are
known for substantive, and sometimes critical, coverage of these issues. Although the issue of
certification of sustainability and the economics of ecotourism have been covered in some detail
in La República, only the Tico Times has entered into these issues naming specific businesses,
possibly for legal reasons. Libel and slander laws are much stricter in Costa Rica than in the
United States, and the burden of truth lies on the journalist, in case of legal challenges.
4. Marketing
As Costa Rica's tourism industry has grown larger and more sophisticated, many smaller
businesses have had difficulty keeping up with changing marketing trends. As Jay Brodell,
publisher of A.M. Costa Rica, a daily English language travel-related news service, wrote in
Planeta.com in September 2002, "To my knowledge there is no study about Costa Rica and the
change in tourism. But…the key point is marketing. Merchants who had something to offer
survived if they used marketing effectively. Those who continued their old ways of trying to do
business "word of mouth" and with a zero marketing budget lost everything."
Brodell goes on to state, "As a newspaper publisher here in Costa Rica, I have been surprised at
the lack of marketing skill shown by the tourism sector. I think (but do not know for sure) that
many smaller operators really have no experience in doing what they are doing. For many their
operation is a way to live in Costa Rica. They have a client list, and manage to fill up about half
their rooms in the high season by e-mail to old clients. They accept the low season as one would
accept death and taxes. Something to be suffered through instead of as a marketing challenge."
He concludes, "From a Darwinesque point of view, I guess they deserve what happens
to them. But until savvy small business people accept responsibility for their own lack of action,
the bigger firms (which really are less efficient) will continue to blow them away."
A. TRADE SHOWS
Costa Rican tour operators, transport companies, hotels, and ecolodges frequently participate in
travel trade shows as promotional tools, but their participation is radically different in different
types of shows. Shows can be local within Costa Rica, national, or international.
Local travel trade shows tend to be organized by regional trade associations (chambers of
tourism), universities, trade unions, solidarity associations, and shopping malls. Participation in
these trade shows is usually very inexpensive (less than US$100), while the number of visitors
is also small. The target market is domestic tourism, although some travel clubs participate in
them to promote their savings plans for international tours and airfare. The companies that
participate in these shows are often local ecolodges when organized by trade associations or tour
operators with strong local marketing programs for other events.
On a national level, the principal trade show is Expotur, organized since 1984 by the Costa
Rican Association of Tourism Professionals (ACOPROT). The cost of participation is in excess
of US$1,000, so smaller ecotourism businesses either do not participate or participate as part of
larger groupings, such as local trade associations or networks of youth hostels, private nature
reserves, or community-based organizations. This trade show is therefore dominated by sellers
who are relatively economically solvent, including many beach and city hotels, larger high-end
ecolodges, and local tour operators. There is also growing participation by ecotourism and
conventional tourism businesses from the rest of Central America, who are increasingly seen as
serious competition to Costa Rica’s positioning as an ecotourism capital.
Other national trade shows are organized on a smaller scale by a variety of non-governmental
and international organizations, with much better participation by smaller ecolodges, but little or
no participation by commercial buyers (international and domestic tour operators) or the general
public. In some cases the events appear to be organized in order to comply with internal or
contractual institutional mandates, with no real thought to marketing. One exception has been
the very small-scale and inexpensive “European Trade Fair”, organized by Futuropa, a
consortium of small businesses with strong European markets. This show arranges short
appointments between the businesses and national tour operators with European wholesalers.
One company reported over $25,000 in annual sales as a direct result of its fifty-dollar
participation in this fair. Another successful exception is the community-based tourism show
organized by Cooprena, a consortium of cooperatives engaged in agroecotourism. This show is
oriented towards the Costa Rican general public and has had very high attendance, although
little is known about sales resulting from the fair.
Costa Rican participation in international trade shows revolves around just a few events: ITB in
Germany, FITUR in Spain, IATOS in the United States, TravelMart Latin America, and
Reisepavillon in Germany, as well as a few others. Although participation in ITB, FITUR, and
some other events is subsidized by the Costa Rican Tourist Board (ICT) for registered
businesses, the overall cost of participation (airfare, lodging, meals, promotional materials, etc.)
is too high for most small ecotourism businesses. Their participation is indirect, via the tour
operators who already sell their products. New businesses or those who are not represented by a
tour operator, have no direct or indirect participation.
Expotur and the international trade shows constitute important marketing tools for establishing
contact with international tour operators. According to Expotur’s sponsor, ACOPROT, these
operators are responsible for about 48% of all international tourist visitors to Costa Rica,
although this does not coincide with independent survey results. As Costa Rica has become a
mainstream destination, although specialized in ecotourism, new tour operators tend to gravitate
to a few established destinations – Arenal, Tortuguero, Monteverde, and the beaches. Trade
shows serve to introduce both new and established tour operators to new products.
The inability of small ecotourism businesses to participate in trade shows constitutes an implicit
barrier to their full incorporation into the international tourist marketplace. These barriers are
not all economic: trade fairs organized by non-governmental and international organizations
often pay the full cost of participation, especially in proprietary events. However these events
often have no relationship to normal marketing channels. Furthermore, presence even in an
established trade fair does not guarantee sales. Professional quality participation, with advance
preparation and prior contact with potential tour operators is necessary. Many smaller
ecotourism businesses have not been taught the necessary skills or given training when they do
go to international trade events, so their participation is ineffective.
Some case studies of these events follow:
Expotur
Expotur, as described above, was established in 1984 by the Costa Rican Association of
Tourism Professionals (ACOPROT). Typically, about 150 international wholesale tour
operators participate as buyers, mostly from the U.S., but representing 20 countries in 2003.
About 270 businesses, mostly Costa Rican, offer their services as sellers. The following table
shows the breakdown by activity in 2003:
!
Activity
Airlines
Lodging
Tour operators
Car rentals
Other
30
ACOPROT website
TABLE 9: EXPOTUR PARTICIPANTS 2003 30
Number of
Country
Number of sellers
sellers
Argentina
1
5
Chile
1
140
Colombia
1
77
Costa
Rica
239
15
Ecuador
1
18
Speakers
TOTAL
17
272
Mexico
Nicaragua
Panama
USA
1
20
7
1
Expotur provides an opportunity at moderate cost, for Costa Rican businesses to offer their
product to wholesalers. In its 20 years of existence, Expotur has changed several times in its
orientation. In the 1980s, most sellers offered San Jose and some beaches. Most of the important
local tour operators were exhibitors. The questionnaire for matching buyers and sellers did not
take into consideration ecotourism activities.
In the 1990s, the emphasis shifted to nature-based destinations. Costa Rica had become an
exiting new destination, and new buyers interested in nature-based tourism were constantly
added. The questionnaires took into account nature-based activities such as nature walks and
hiking.
By the end of that period, many Costa Rican tour operators had ceased to enroll as sellers and
participated only as buyers of the services offered. After 2000, an effort was made to
incorporate other Central American countries as sellers, with mixed success. In recent years,
participation by European wholesalers has decreased, while the total number of buyers has
remained relatively constant. The number of new wholesalers has steadily declined, indicating
that often buyers come to review what new products are offered.
As a forum for marketing ecotourism, Expotur has limited success. Because of the cost of $900
to $1200 to exhibit, in addition to food, lodging, and promotional materials, smaller businesses
can participate only with some difficulty, although even so, it is much less expensive than
participation in an international event in Europe or the United States. Many new businesses do
not make prior arrangements with buyers to meet with foreign wholesalers, and so do not
succeed in establishing business relationships. Because most of the buyers have been selling
tours in Costa Rica for a number of years, it is difficult to incorporate new products, unless these
have sophisticated promotion and very high quality.
The opportunity to promote businesses that have been certified as sustainable has been missed a
number of times. The Costa Rican Tourist Board (ICT) participates every year, but has not
promoted its program of Certification of Sustainable Tourism (CST) at Expotur. As a result,
there is no differential promotion of certified versus non-certified businesses. Because of the
principal of non-discrimination among participating businesses.
TravelMart Latin America
TravelMart Latin America, begun over 25 years ago, is considered the most important business
development event for both "buyers" of tourism products and services and "suppliers" from
every country in the hemisphere. It is organized by William H. Coleman, a Florida-based
advertising, marketing, and public relations firm that also organizes trade shows in Mexico,
Europe, the Caribbean, Pacific Rim, and the United States.
!
In 2003, the 27th annual TravelMart Latin America, held in September in Quito, Ecuador, was
restricted to 850 delegates, including 300 tour operator "buyers" from global markets and 225
supplier companies and organizations from Central and South America. The list included some
30 Costa Rican companies, including some of the leading and more upscale businesses
specializing in the ecotourism market.
In 2002, TravelMart Latin America was held at the Hotel Herradura in San Jose, Costa Rica.
According to one of those who attended, Carol Cespedes, President of Halintours based in
Austin, Texas, TravelMart Latin America "seems to have been a highly succesful venue for
nature lodges and ecotourism operators." In Planeta.com, Cespedes wrote, "Some of the larger
and more successful tour companies in Costa Rica - companies such as Costa Rica Expeditions,
Costa Rica Temptations, Costa Rica Sun Tours, Horizontes, and Central America Tours - have
developed a regular presence at TravelMart, even preferring it to the national show. This is
because they have an opportunity to tap new markets, particularly the European buyers, who are
more likely to invest in attending an all Latin-America travel show rather than one of only
national scope. TravelMart buyers tend to be a sophisticated group. They are all tour operators
or travel wholesalers (retail travel agents participate in TREX, a different Coleman travel show.)
Many of the TravelMart participants have a specifically ecotourism focus, and Coleman has
cultivated this by introducing buyers to many new or off-the-beaten-track destinations (such as
Eastern Bolivia, Uruguay, and Northeastern Brazil) while encouraging local vendors to
highlight their region with fam tours. We buyers have come to expect a great deal from
Coleman, and we are seldom disappointed."
Cespedes went on to express some "disappointment" with the make-up of the Costa Rican show
because fine examples of smaller ecotourism companies and environmental projects were not
well represented. "With the exception of some interesting adventure tours (mountain biking, for
instance), I see little that is new," she wrote. "Even with the presence of respected ecotourism
operators, the show seems dominated by mainstream hotel, resort, and rental car tourism. I would
like to hear more about community-based projects and conservation work - the success of ATEC
in Puerto Viejo, the award given to ANAI in Gandoca Manzanillo, the work with the Guaymi
Reserve on the Osa - or more about national parks and conservation areas."
C. FAM TRIPS/ TRAVEL PRESS
A very important promotional method for lodging facilities and ground operators is the use of
“familiarization tours” or “fam trips”, where tour operators and the general interest and travel
press are invited to participate in a tour or visit a lodging facility at very low cost or free of
charge. These tours are considered an essential cost of doing business, as they are the principal
method for convincing international tour operators that a tourist product will meet the quality
standards and characteristics of price and diversity required. For press trips, there is greater
skepticism on the part of the businesses offering the fam trips, as many writers are freelance,
and there is a perception that no useful press coverage will result. Nevertheless, offering fam
trips for reputable writers remains a very cost-effective method for promotion, as editorial
coverage is free and considered much more credible than advertising. There is, however, some
question about the objectivity of the writers who have enjoyed free or inexpensive tours. This
tendency has become more marked as writing about tourism and ecotourism in Costa Rica has
moved from the mainstream editorial press writing about Costa Rica’s innovations, towards
travel writers writing about Costa Rica as a mainstream destination.
5. Government Policies towards Nature-based Tourism
The official government position on ecotourism has shifted from ignorance of it in the 1980s, to
benign neglect in the 1990s, to ostensible support since about 1998. For decades, the government
and its Tourist Board (ICT) were only peripherally aware of the development of the ecotourism
industry and the international positioning of the country as an ecotourism destination. During the
years of greatest growth in ecotourism, government policy oscillated around promoting city
tourism (early 1980s), sun-fun beach tourism (late 1980s), golf (early 1990s), and sustainable
conventional tourism (mid to late 1990s). At least one director of the ICT had been driven from
his position by large business interests, because of his support the small businesses that make up
more that 80% of Costa Rica’s tourist industry. 31
It was only with the advent of the advertising campaign “Costa Rica: no artificial ingredients”
that policy actually began to reflect what had been known by the international tourist industry for
almost 20 years – that Costa Rica’s greatest strength was tourism to visit its relatively pristine
natural resources. This campaign coincided serendipitously with the naming of a person trained
in biology and business administration as ICT’s director of planning. And this person, Rodolfo
Lizano, had had a key role in the development of Costa Rica’s program for the Certification of
Sustainable Tourism (CST).
The genesis of Costa Rica’s positioning in ecotourism is its early decision to establish important
national parks for habitat conservation only. Costa Rica’s interest in natural history and
conservation dates to the late nineteenth century, when a small group of biologists and naturalists
established the National Museum and excellent field collections. A small corps of dedicated
naturalists maintained this tradition, training students and successors, and making a hospitable
environment for ecological research. Private nature reserves and biological stations were quietly
established in the 1950s and 60s, and a halfhearted effort was made to establish national parks at
the summit of the country’s volcanoes and along part of the Pan-American Highway. However it
was not until the arrival of Kenton Miller and his influence on his students Mario Boza and
Alvaro Ugalde in the early 1970s that the existing strong and healthy system of national parks
was created. Boza and Ugalde led a campaign that continues through today to establish national
parks and biological reserves in all the habitat types of Costa Rica. This effort was very
successful, and currently almost 13% of Costa Rica is securely protected by national parks and
biological reserves. Other protected areas, such as “protected zones”, forest reserves, and wildlife
refuge are largely under private ownership and are candidates for what is now called “sustainable
development”, meaning, in most cases, ecotourism. Hundreds of undeclared private nature
reserves also exist. Over 111 of these have ecolodges or other ecotourism activities. Most private
nature reserve owners have been shown to be motivated by factors other than money to conserve
their land. This mosaic of large, pristine national parks with smaller private reserves with visitor
facilities provided the fertile ground necessary for ecotourism to be born.
In the early 1970s, the Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS) established biological stations
and a series of courses in tropical biology stations in Costa Rica. The courses spent time at La
Selva Biological Station, Palo Verde National Park, and Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, as
31
J. L. Paez, pers. comm.
well as other national parks. A study by Jan Laarman in 1989 revealed that visits by family and
friends of OTS researchers, as well as return visits of former students, was the principal source of
the growth of nature-oriented tourism in Costa Rica at that time. Word-of-mouth
recommendations from these initial visitors to Costa Rica’s natural areas may well have created
the market for nature-oriented tourism and ecotourism in Costa Rica. OTS graduates, both Costa
Rican and foreign, became the first naturalist guides and lodge owners, giving the industry a
sophisticated, scientifically sound set of initial parameters for design and interpretation. This
robust beginning set the stage for the high quality of Costa Rica’s incipient ecotourism industry.
Government policy is neutral, by law, with respect to the type of tourist business supported.
There is no facilitating legislation to promote sustainable or ecotourism businesses over
conventional or mass tourism, effective local zoning is absent in nearly all of the country, and
there is no legal basis for giving preference to small businesses over large ones. The legislation
that does exist requires environmental impact evaluations for new construction, and a large series
of bureaucratic requirements. These are often easier for large businesses to comply with, as they
have the human and financial resources to do so. Furthermore, those few people representing
multi-million dollar investments usually have much better access to high government figures
than do the multitude of small investors who make up the bulk of the industry.
Thus, although there is no official or unofficial policy to favor large businesses, because of their
local and national impact, access to influential politicians, and ability to comply with
bureaucratic requirements, there is an unconscious bias towards preferential treatment for large
projects. It is also easier for mid-level functionaries to negotiate with one person or entity, rather
than many.
There is also a long-standing complementary policy of promoting foreign investment of all types
in Costa Rica. This is seen as an important component of Costa Rica’s macroeconomic policy.
Furthermore, legislation in the United States, as well as some international trade regulations, has
caused severe prejudice to Costa Rica in those cases where U.S. investments and land holdings
have been affected. Costa Rica therefore has no policies, except in the Coastal Management
Zone, that might be perceived as inhibiting foreign investment.
In tourism, these policies have been reflected by favorable treatment of foreign investment in
hotels and resorts, as well as by the gradual acquisition of Costa Rican owned hotels by foreign
chains. Because about half of all tourists to Costa Rica come from the U.S., most of the larger
tourist businesses cater to this market. Surprisingly however, much of the investment in larger
beach properties has been European, especially Spanish, although Europe represents only 17% of
Costa Rica’s market.
Today there are many more Costa Ricans in management positions at foreign-owned hotels than
a decade or so ago. Well-educated, trained in tourism and bi-lingual, they a not confined to being
maids and gardeners. Beatrice Blake observes:
"Now there seems to be much more friendliness, cooperation and respect between the
Ticos, Europeans and gringos than there used to be. I noticed it in the way beach
communities can mobilize to earn the Blue Flag. …I think that in general tourism has
improved people's lives. Ticos have a lot more awareness and pride about what their
country has to offer, and seem to be genuinely dedicated to nature, much more than they
were twenty years ago. I don't know if it could be said that tourism alone has brought the
drug culture to Costa Rica-- the contra war in the 1980s certainly played a role--but it
has been a major influence. It that respect, things are worse--more crime, more theft, loss
of values, etc.
I think that the main problem is that people still can't make a living from the wages that
are paid in Costa Rica. There is something about the economic structure that doesn't
work. Ticos have learned that they can make a lot of money in tourism, but also that it is
a fickle industry, changing with the news, the weather, the latest fad. The whole
agricultural sector is so unsupported by the government that it leaves people in between-cant' make a living from the farm, can't really make it from tourism either."
As evidenced by the steady rate of thickness of The Key to Costa Rica since 1997, the
boom of the late 80's and early 90's has leveled off, and Ticos are not longer under the
illusion that tourism is the answer for all their economic ills. Now they have to be smart,
compete, and provide quality structures and service in order for their small businesses to
succeed."
6. Certification Programs in Costa Rica
A. BACKGROUND TO GREEN CERTIFICATION
In April 1996, Bary Roberts, an official with the Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT), stood up
in the audience during a conference on “Ecotourism, Measuring the Impacts” at Yale
University’s School of Forestry and the Environment. From the floor, he announced that the
government of Costa Rica was about to become the first in the world to create a certification
program to rate the environmental and socio-economic sustainability of hotels. This
announcement took the speaker, Beatrice Blake, by surprise since she had been invited to Yale to
explain a pioneering “green” rating system for ecolodges that she and a small group of
environmentalists had been running in Costa Rica for several years.
During the 1990s, and particularly in the wake of the United Nations’ 1992 Earth Summit 32 ,
certification programs took hold not only in Costa Rica but also around the world. Certification
is defined as a procedure that assesses, audits and gives written assurance that a
facility, product, process or service meets specific standards. It awards a marketable logo to
those that meet or exceed baseline standards. According to a World Tourism Organization
study, by 2001, there were 102 eco-labels, awards, and self-commitment programs around the
globe, of which 59 were “very comprehensive state of the art” certification schemes. Most are
in Europe and the majority cover accommodations. 33 Today, the initiative announced by
Roberts—the Certification for Sustainable Tourism (CST)—is widely views as one of the best
programs.
32
The Earth Summit’s official name was the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development or UNCED. Its
purpose was to encourage socially and environmentally responsible business practices.
33
World Tourism Organization, Sustainable Development of Tourism Section, Voluntary Initiatives for Sustainable Tourism
(Madrid: WTO, 2002).
From the outset, the CST has been backed with both political muscle and financial resources. In
contrast, Blake’s certification program had been created from the ground up and implemented by
the authors of The New Key to Costa Rica, the country’s oldest and well-respected tourist guide
book. Blake, the New Key editor, recalls that she talked with Roberts extensively over dinner “to
see if our goals and ideas meshed.” She says she welcomed CST “with hope and curiosity” and
came away “pleased that the government of Costa Rica seemed willing to carry on what we had
started.” As Blake and her colleague Anne Becher later wrote, “Ideally, we would like to let their
certification program replace ours, but we are waiting to see if the results of their program truly
have the effect of promoting sustainable practices.” 34
The hand-off was not, however, to be entirely smooth or complete. Over the coming years, as the
New Key program sputtered and CST soared, those behind both continued to spar. The on-going
tensions between the two systems reflect not only the founders’ sense of ownership but also,
more fundamentally, the somewhat different missions of both programs. The New Key
certification program was created by those committed to protecting high standards within naturebased, small-scale and often locally-owned ecolodges, while those behind CST aimed to set
environmental and social standards within to a broader swath of the tourism industry that often
includes more upscale, conventional, urban, and foreign owned hotels. In essence, the New Key
certification program was created to cover Costa Rica’s ecotourism sector and the CST is
designed to cover businesses purporting to practice sustainable tourism.
B. EARLY CERTIFICATION EXPERIMENTS
Beginning in the early 1990s, Costa Rica became a laboratory for experiments in eco- and
sustainable tourism certification initiatives aimed at distinguishing the green from the
greenwashing and preserving Costa Rica’s international reputation.
As early as 1992, Bary Roberts and other officials with the Institute for Costa Rican Tourism
(ICT), with the assistance of international experts and financing, held a series of seminars that
lead to the creation of a Green Seal (Selo Verde) that was to be awarded to businesses following
“best” ecotourism practices. Only a few Selo Verdes were ever awarded--one went to Bary
Roberts’ own tour agency, Tikal—and considerable concern was voiced that a government-run
program would not be neutral or trustworthy. Roberts argues, however, this effort helped pave
the way within the ICT for the CST program. 35
Since 1995, ICT, in collaboration with several other ministries (Health, Water, Environment, as
well as the Chamber of Commerce), has also been running Ecological Blue Flag (Bandera Azul
Ecológica -- BAE), loosely based on a highly respected and successful environmental
certification program first begun in Europe to certify beaches. 36 The program measures ocean
34
Author’s telephone interviews and electronic communications with Beatrice Blake, 2000-2002 and personal interview with
Bary Roberts, San Jose, Costa Rica, August 2002, San Jose, Costa Rica; Anne Becher and Beatrice Blake, “Reflections on
‘Green Ratings,’” website: www.greenbuilder.com/mader/planeta/0898/0898rating.html.
35
Author’s interview with Bary Roberts, August 2002.
36
For a history of Blue Flag in Europe, see Xaviar Font and Tanja Mihalic, “Beyond Hotels: nature-Based Certification in
Europe,” in Martha Honey, ed., Ecotourism and Certification: Setting Standards in Practice (Washington, DC: Island Press,
2002), pp. 214-222.
and drinking water quality, beach cleanliness, waste disposal, availability of sanitary facilities,
existence of signs with safety instructions, and community involvement in keeping the beach
clean and educating local residents. Evaluation criteria is strict and only beaches with a score of
at least 90% are certified. BAE awards three levels of logos:
!
!
!
A – Beaches with a minimum score of 90%.
AA – Beaches with a score of 100%, plus life guards during high season.
AAA – Beaches with a score of 100%, life guards and first aid-trained personnel,
access for persons with disabilities, tourist information, and showers and toilets.
Beaches are monitored on a monthly basis, thereby offering incentives for beach communities to
improve and sustain positive evaluations. By 2001, 37 beaches in Costa Rica had received Blue
Flag certification. Blue Flag has grown quickly to become an effective tourism certification
program, one that brings tangible benefits for conservation and local community and is actively
supported by both tourists and local communities. 37
Another, small program, begun in 1999, is run by the Ministry of the Environment and Energy
(MINAE) classifies biological stations, ecolodges, beach lodges, and food services. It awards one
to three stars based on the physical infrastructure, security and service. 38
In parallel with these were several certification programs run by either the government or
industry associations that targeted quality and safety rather than social and environmental
criteria. As in most other countries, Costa Rica’s oldest certification program, begun in 1978, is a
five star rating system designed to measure levels of quality of infrastructure—not
sustainability—for accommodations. Administered by the ICT, this program had, by 2001, given
one to five stars to 370 accommodations, based on on-site audits that check for a long list of
amenities, ranging from whether the hotel has a golf course to a sauna to bicycle rentals, ice
makers, and cable TV. ICT requires hotels to be star-rated when they apply for an operating
license, and the ICT lists star certified hotels on its home page: www.tourism-costarica.com. 39
Hotels that do not qualify for even one star are disqualified from any government incentives and
can be closed for non-compliance with quality standards. 40
In 2000, ICT brought in the Menlo Consulting Group from Canada to overhaul, streamline and
simplify the system and its criteria so that it better conformed to international standards. This
exercise was only partially successful. Although part of the tourism industry’s international star
rating system, in practice standards vary from one country to another. 41 As ICT official Rodolfo
Lizano stated, “You can’t compare 5 stars in Miami with 5 stars in Costa Rica.” 42
37
Beatrice Blake, Rodolfo Lizano, Amos Bien, Chris Spilsbury, and others, interviews with author, August 2002. “Ecological
Blue Flag” on website: http://www.fascinationcostarica.com/entry.cfm?nEntrada=4188.
38
Written materials sent by Amos Bien to author, November 2002.
39
Bien, written materials; Menlo Consulting Group, Hotel Classification system Development for Costa Rica, prepared for IPC,
May 1998; Website: http://www.tourism-costarica.com/tourism-costaricacom/html/TripPlaner/index.htm; author’s interview
with Bary Roberts, Marketing Director, ICT and Glenn Jampol, owner, Rosa Blanca Country Inn, San Jose, Costa Rica, August
2002.
40
According to the Menlo study, only 1.3% of the total hotel rooms did not classify and only 1.4% of rooms had not yet been
classified.
41
Bien, written materials; Menlo, Hotel Classification.
42
Rodolfo Lizano, ICT, San Jose, Costa Rica, interview with author, August 2002.
A complementary certification program, Service Best, is run by the Central American Federation
of Chambers of Tourism and Costa Rica’s national chamber, while yet another, run by the U.S.based Freeman Group measures standard of performance based on tourist interviews. Finally, the
Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) measures standards for food handling. 43
Yet another quality seal is Guaria begun in 1999 by the National Chamber of Tourist
Microbusinesses (CANAMET), an industry association. Named after a large purple orchid which
is also Costa Rica’s national flower, Guaria’s criteria emphasizes service, service, cleanliness,
occupational health, and employee appearance rather than socio-economic or environmental
standards. Aimed at small restaurants and lodges, this second-party auditing program awarded 24
quality seals its first year. 44
C. CLASSIFYING COSTA RICA’S CERTIFICATION PROGRAMS
This rather dizzying array of tourism certification programs in Costa Rica, as well as globally,
can be categorized, analyzed, and evaluated in several ways:
!
Industry Sectors: The tourism industry as a whole can be divided into three uneven markets:
conventional tourism, sustainable tourism, and ecotourism. While not a precise science,
conventional tourism certification programs can be divided into these three sectors. Those
covering the large sectors of the mass tourism industry, such as hotel chains and resorts,
cruise and airlines, and golf courses, were typically built and may be certified without
reference to environmental or social criteria. Sustainable tourism encompasses businesses
seeking to meet certain environmental and socio-economic criteria. Ecotourism covers a slice
of the sustainable tourism sector that is located in or near protected areas or indigenous
communities. 45 The five star rating system is geared towards the conventional market
(although all hotels must qualify), while CST targets sustainable tourism and New Key is
focused on ecotourism.
!
Criteria: Certification programs can be viewed, as consultant Robert Toth puts its, as “threelegged stool” designed to measure 1) quality and service, 2) health and safety, and 3)
sustainability, which includes environmental and socio-economic impacts. 46 (Figure 3) Older
programs like the five star rating measure quality and service. Healthy and safety standards
are typically set by the government, some certification programs, such as HACCP, are
designed specifically to measure this second leg. The sustainability leg is the newest,
growing most rapidly since the 1990s in response to the rise of ecotourism. Both the CST and
New Key programs center on measuring environmental and socio-economic impacts and
benefits.
43
Bien, written information.
Bien, “Environmental Certification,” p. 143.
45
Martha Honey and Abigail Rome, Protecting Paradise: Certification Programs for Sustainable Tourism and Ecotourism
(Washington, DC: Institute for Policy Studies, 2001).
46
Robert Toth, “Exploring the Concepts Underlying Certification,” in Honey, Ecotourism and Certification, p. 74.
44
FIGURE 5: THREE LEGS OF GREEN CERTIFICATION PROGRAMS
Source: Toth, “Exploring the Concepts,” p. 74.
!
Methodology: Certification programs use either process-based or performance-based criteria,
with some of the newer ones combining both. Today, process-based programs use an
internally created environmental management systems (EMS) tailored to the particular
business, while performance-based programs contain a uniform set of environmental and
often socio-economic criteria against which all businesses are measured. Under processbased programs such as ISO 14001, corporate management sets up mechanisms or systems
for measuring and reducing, for instance, water and electricity use. Comparisons across
businesses are not possible since the type of EMS varies from one company to the next and
no fixed targets are set. Logos are awarded when the management system is set up, not when
certain targets are achieved. In contrast, performance based system are created outside the
business by government, NGOs, academics, or by a mix of relevant stakeholders.
Performance-based programs have set targets--such as what percentage of energy must be
produced by renewables-- that all businesses must meet to receive a logo and this makes it
possible to compare one business from another. As discussed below, both New Key and CST
are performance-based certification programs, although CST contains some process criteria.
!
Auditing: All certification programs award logos based on some kind of assessment or audit.
This can be first-party, that is done by the business itself, second party which means it is
performed by an industry association, and third-party, that is done by independent assessors.
Guaria and Service Best both run by chambers of commerce are second-party systems, while
Costa Rica’s five star system, New Key, and CST are all third party.
There is a growing consensus that the credible green certification programs should be largely
performance-based, third-party that include environmental and socio-economic standards and
cover the sustainable tourism and/or ecotourism sectors.47 As detailed below, first New Key and
today CST meet these standards.
47
Honey and Rome, Protecting Paradise. The so-called Mohonk Agreement, included in the study, was unanimously agreed
upon by participants in a 2000 international conference on certification programs. This Agreement outlines the necessary
components for both sustainable tourism and ecotourism certification programs.
D. NEW KEY’S “SUSTAINABLE TOURISM RATING” 48
Costa Rica’s experiments with environmental and social certification began in 1989 when a
small group of environmentalists, academics, scientists, ecotourism practitioners and writers in
Costa Rica began developing an eco-rating system. Under the auspices of the local Audubon
Society and the Institute for Central American Studies (ICAS), they created a “Code of Ethics for
Sustainable Tourism” with eight basic principles and in 1991, organized a conference at which
ideas for an eco-labeling system were discussed, and rated all known tourist lodgings in Costa
Rica (about 300) based on compliance with the Code. Although the Code never became widely
accepted or well known, it was used as the basis for the first “green-rating” which appeared in
New Key’s 1992 edition. In subsequent editions, the model was perfected through consultations
with lodge owners and tour operators, tourism school professors, scientists and engineers.
Eventually it came to include a rigorous ecolodge survey and onsite inspections.49 As New Key
authors Beatrice Blake and Anne Becher wrote in evaluating their program, “We originally
initiated the evaluation project when Costa Rica was in the first stages of its tourism boom,
because we wanted to promote establishments that embodied our vision of how tourism should
develop in Costa Rica. We wanted to do what we could to help the tourism industry avoid the
pitfalls of traditional tourism.” 50
Over time, the authors developed an 8-page survey and a more scientific rating system with
weighted questions. The surveys focuses on three areas of operation: 1) the environment
(including environmental impact of the lodge, use of energy and natural resources); 2) economic
(how much money stays in the local community); and 3) socio-culture (how knowledgeable the
owners are about the local culture and how they work to fortify it). The authors, together with
Jane Segleau, a graduate student in tourism studies, set out to identify and evaluate all lodges in
Costa Rica that claim to be involved in ecotourism. In practice, this meant lodges that either had
their own reserve or that make use of a national park. Most beach resorts were, by definition,
excluded from the survey.
Becher and Segleau traversed the country, spending hours at each location interviewing at each
lodge the owners, workers and community representatives. Those lodges that passed muster,
usually around 65, received a rating of one to three “suns”; those that failed were not listed in
the New Key’s “Sustainable Tourism Rating.” The survey findings were kept confidential but
Becher wrote long reports to all the lodge managers, outlining the results and suggesting areas
for improvement.
This homegrown, low-budget, labor-intensive project is a creative pioneer in the field of
ecotourism certification. The small team of women doing the audits knew Costa Rica well and,
in keeping with sound ecotourism principals, they gave weight to locally-owned lodges, to ones
that “offer a true experience of nature” and “strive to use sustainable practices,” and to ones that
are actively involved in the community and in environmental initiatives and struggles. They had
48
This program is officially called the Sustainable Tourism Rating but is referred to here as New Key program to avoid
confusion with CST which focuses on sustainable tourism.
49
Ibid., pp. 137-138. Author’s numerous interviews between 1995 and 2002 with Richard Holland, Beatrice Blake, and Ann
Becher, plus author’s documents and personal archives.
50
Anne Becher and Beatrice Blake, “Reflections on ‘Green Ratings,’” August 1998.
a good marketing tool through what has been, until recently, Costa Rica’s most popular
guidebook. But over time, Beatrice Blake says, the model has proved unsustainable. The
problems were several-fold: the publishers of New Key were not willing to invest sufficient
resources to fund the survey; other guidebooks on Costa Rica became more popular; and the ecorating-system was heavily dependent on Becher and Blake, both of whom moved away from
Costa Rica. For survey results carried in New Key guidebooks after 2002, Blake says, “I visited
the places and checked them out, but not with questions. I don’t have the time or money so it’s
very haphazard.” By 2002, a number of lodge owners said they had not had a site visit and were
not even aware that they had been certified by New Key. 51
TION FOR SUSTAINABLE TOURISM (CST): ORIGINS AND WORKING
By the mid-1990s, when two young ICT officials, Marco Picado and Rodolfo Lizano, proposed
the creation of the Certification for Sustainable Tourism (CST) program, the idea was quickly
accepted within the agency.52 Lizano, who was a student at INCAE (Central American Institute
for Business Administration), a business school connected with Harvard University, then spent
more than a year developing the concept. In 1997, the first edition of CST for hotels and lodges
was released. The initial set of criteria was refined and finalized, based on several stakeholder
workshops and field-testing.
While stimulated by the New Key program, CST did not draw heavily on this model and
explicitly sought to cover a larger swath of the market than simply ecotourism. Lizano felt
strongly that tourism in Costa Rica was moving beyond small ecolodges and that if the country
were to remain competitive internationally, the newer, larger, more conventional and often more
luxurious hotels also needed to abide by responsible environmental and social principles.
According to Lawrence Pratt, Associate Director for Latin America at INCAE’s Center for
Sustainable Development, CST “addresses environmental, social, and community variables” but
it “is not an ecotourism seal per se. It is applicable to all types of hotels (and in the near future,
tour operators) – city, country, eco, beach. That is its principal strength.” 53
However, like the New Key eco-rating, Lizano and others behind the CST were similarly
motivated by the belief that a solid certification program was vital to protect Costa Rica’s
tourism reputation and weed out greenwashing. As Rodolfo Lizano, the chief creator of CST,
wrote in 1997, "This program directly attacks the practices of some businesses which operate as
‘greenwashers’ (businesses which abuse the concept of ‘eco’ or ‘sustainable’) because it will
51
52
53
Author’s interviews with various lodge owners and managers in Costa Rica, August 2002. In a 1998 article, Blake and
Becher offered a frank critique of their New Key eco-rating system. Their comments include issues and concerns
faced by many of the smaller certification programs. They wrote in part, “The cost of conducting a comprehensive
evaluation is beyond what we could continue to afford ourselves.... Despite our consultation with experts...our
evaluation would have been stronger had we been able to contract technicians to inspect these facilities at each
lodgings.... Perhaps the greatest difficulty for us...was the obligation we had to divide ourselves in half. On one
had we were subjective book writers who spoke out about what we liked and didn’t like in each lodging... On the
other hand, carrying out the survey transformed us into objective evaluators, blind to how we personally felt about
each place...An ideal solution to this conflict of interest/heart, which we tried to fashion, was to pass our
methodology and records to a separate, non-profit evaluation team...”. Anne Becher and Beatrice Blake,
“Reflections on ‘Green Ratings,’” August 1998, Website: www.greenbuilder.com/mader/planeta/0898rating.html.
Bien, “Environmental Certification,” p. 147.
Author’s telephone interviews with Rodolfo Lizano and Lawrence Pratt, July 2000.
offer reliable information about which businesses really make an effort to offer a sustainable
tourism product and which don’t." 54
According to a 1998 evaluation of CST, many of the 104 hotels that had signed up to be
assessed described themselves as “eco-friendly”, “sensitive to the environment” and as
resentful of other facilities that “also use such terminology but do not really put into practice
basic environmental principles or contribute to the quality of life in their communities.”55
A number of features distinguish CST from many other ‘green’ tourism certification programs: it
has the backing of other major stakeholders, is a government-run, and has been relatively well
funded and staffed. CST officials plan eventually to develop criteria to cover all sectors of the
tourism industry; and they are aggressively “marketing” CST as an international model,
particularly for other Latin American countries.
CST’s eco-award program is voluntary, open to any hotel and, at least for the first round, free in
an effort to attract wide participation from hotels and lodges. ICT is currently underwriting the
CST program. Funding has been relatively modest, limiting the number of auditors who can do
onsite visits, creating a backlog of hotels wanting to be audited, and permitting almost no funds
for marketing. By late 2002, however, CST officials said more government funds were going to
be committed to CST. 56
CST developed its evaluation questionnaire and certification system after studying other models
around the world. Lizano says CST chose not to use ISO 14001 standards because “ISO certifies
processes, and even if the processes are good, the results may not be.” 57 Instead, CST developed
a checklist of performance-based questions, permitting all hotels to be measured against the same
criteria. These questions can be relatively easily answered first by the hotel management and
then by the onsite auditor. “For this reason,” writes Robert Toth in a 1998 evaluation of CST,
“there is little need for the intensive training, consultants, and other service providers typical of
sectors which apply generic (environment management systems) standards.” 58
The CST evaluation questionnaire for hotels is designed for medium to large accommodations,
whatever their market. It measures sustainability along three axes: environmental, social, and
economic. The questionnaire contains a check list of 153 yes/no questions in four general
categories: 1) physical-biological environment (including such subcategories as emissions and
waste, protection of flora and fauna, etc); 2) hotel facilities (including, for instance, management
policies, final disposal and training); 3) customers (including respect for community and nature);
and 4) socio-economic environment (including direct and indirect economic benefits,
contributions to cultural development and health). By 2002, criteria for tour agencies and
operators had been developed and was being field tested with some 10 businesses. (Table 10)
54
Rodolfo Lizano, “CST—Towards a New Competitive Advantage,” draft paper (San Jose, Costa Rica: ICT, 1997), 7 pages.
Robert Toth, “Enhancing Credibility of Costa Rica’s Sustainable Tourism Certification System” (Alexandria, VA: R.B. Toth
Associates, 1998), p. 8.
56
Lizano, Roberts, Pratt, interviews, August 2002.
57
Lizano, interview, 2000.
58
Toth, 1998, p. 6.
55
TABLE 10: CST CRITERIA FOR HOTELS, AGENCIES, AND TOUR OPERATORS
Hotels
Agencies and Tour Operators
A) Physical-biological Environment
1) Policies and programs
2) Emissions and wastes
3) Green zones
4) Natural areas
5) Protection of flora and fauna
A) Physical-biological Environment
1) Impact prevention
2) Protection of the natural environment
3) Emissions and wastes
4) Product consumption
5) Services offered
6) Environmental management
7) Policies and programs
B) Hotel Facilities
6) Formulation of policies
7) Water consumption
8) Energy consumption
9) Commodity use
–Food and beverages
–Cleaning and cosmetics
10) Waste management
11) Training
C) Customers
12) Communication and participation
13) Guest facilities and instructions
14) Management of groups
15) Feedback
D) Socio-economic Environment
16) Direct economic benefits
17) Indirect economic benefits
18) Contribution to cultural development
19) Contribution to health
20) Infrastructure and security
B) Administration of Services
8) Administration of personnel and training
9) Product consumption
10) Communication and participation
11) Product design
12) Service offerings
13) Direct economic benefits
14) Feedback
15) Policies and programs
16) Tour guides
C) Customers
17) Mitigation of impacts
18) Emissions and wastes
19) Communication and participation
20) Client persuasion
21) Environmental management
22) Policies and programs
D. Socio-economic Environment
23) Policies and programs
24) Final product
25) Service offerings
26) Direct economic benefits
27) Indirect economic benefits
28) Protection of local culture
Source: Bien, “Environmental Certification,” pp. 148-149. Adapted from Costa Rican Tourism
Institute (ICT), Certificacion para la Sostenibilidad Turistica CST: Manual de Categorizacion.
Manual para Hoteles; ICT, Certificacion para la Sostenibilidad Turistica CST: Manual de
Categorizacion. Manual para Agencia y Tour Operadoras. Working draft document, 2001.
Hotels that sign up to be certified are handled on a first come, first serve basis. There is also a
self-evaluation from on the CST website so that hotels can rate themselves and assess where
improvements are needed. But certification requires on-site, third party inspection.
CST’s five-person technical staff includes four inspectors, each with expertise in one or more of
the four major questionnaire categories. Inspectors first do an initial site visit to explain the CST
process, give the managers a manual containing evaluation guidelines, and go over the
evaluation questionnaire. This takes on average two hours. A month or two month later, an
inspection team (initially of all four inspectors; now usually two inspectors) returns for a formal
assessment, using the check list and putting “yes” for compliance or “no”for non-compliance
beside each item. 59
The on-site inspectors also confirm that management has written operational guidelines to verify
the existence of appropriate procedures and receipts verifying purchasing practices. It is
estimated that a site visit to a 50-room hotel requires four person-days. After the evaluation, the
hotels are given a list of recommendations and 15 days to fix various problems. The auditors
may go back to see if the corrections were made.
E. THE SCORING
Each of the 153 questions is weighted on a scale from one to three, with 3 the most important.
For example, one question under the physical-biological environment is “The hotel has a private
reserve” and a “yes” answer receives 2 points. Another under the socio-economic environment
gives three points if at least “60% of the hotel’s employees are people from the local
community.” The total points received in each category are then tallied and a formula is used to
calculate the final score for each of the four general areas. The lowest final score received for any
of these four categories determines the sustainability category obtained by the hotel. Lizano, the
architect of this unusual and seemingly harsh scoring system, says it is designed to encourage
improvement. “We don’t use an average because businesses could then work harder only in the
areas easiest for them. We want them to advance in all four areas equally, to give all equal
importance,” explains Lizano.60
Certified hotels are then ranked in six different “sustainability” levels, similar to the traditional
‘star’ categorization used for hotels. (Table 5) The highest, level five which is designated by five
leaves, is achieved only by scoring 94% or above in each of the four rating areas. By 2002, no
accommodations had reached level five, although five hotels and lodges had achieved level four,
meaning they scored between 80% and 94% in each of the four categories. A minimum score of
20% in each area is required to be certified on the lowest rung, level one. By 2002, 58 hotels had
received between one and four leaves. “Only two or three hotels got zero. And they were pretty
terrible,” explained Lizano. 61 These failing hotels are not listed on the CST website. Costa Rican
officials say that the different levels in this system helps encourage hotels to make improvements
so that they can receive a higher rating when next audited. However, by 2004, two hotels, Finca
Rosa Blanca and Lapa Rios, had achieved five leaves of CST. By this time many hotels had
dropped out of the program, leaving on 37 hotels still certified.
59
Toth, 1998, p. 8-9.
Lizano, interview, 2000.
61
Ibid.
60
TABLE 11: LEVELS OF SUSTAINABILITY
Level of
Minimum percentage of compliance
sustainability for all four general areas
0
< 20%
1
20 – 39
2
40 – 59
3
60 – 79
4
80 – 94
5
> 94
Source: www.turismo-sostenible.co.cr/EN/sobreCST/manual/intro.shtml.
Some argue that the CST has set the bar too low by requiring only 20% “yes” answers to get one
star. “It doesn’t take much to get a score of 20% - 39% --which would be an F in school,” notes
Beatrice Blake. 62 However, others, such as Glenn Jampol, owner of the small, luxurious Rosa
Blanca Country Inn which has received CST’s highest rating of 95%, argue that “While many of
us are doing it out of a desire to do the right thing, there’s a need to get others on the bus, to get
them to get a star for doing minimal things, and then have them move up slowly.” He adds the
goal of CST should be to “isolate” what he calls the “hotel acnes.” 63
INCAE’s Lawrence Pratt, who is a member of the National Accreditation Commission, argues,
“CST has nailed it by having yes/no questions and a system of levels. Within the yes/no there’s a
large body of jurisprudence as to what answers mean. The technicians write down details of what
they find and of their views. We do some interpretation. There is a good level of detail.” 64
Certified hotels receive a CST plaque showing the level they have achieved. (Figure 56) By mid2000, no hotel had received the top 5 rating, although one lodge is close to achieving a perfect
score. Of the 47 certified hotels, only three had received a level 4. Lizano argues that the process
is more important than the score: “Sustainable tourism is a synonym for responsible tourism.
What’s important is not arriving at the goal but the work towards getting there. Along the way,
you’re changing the mentality of businessmen. The goal is never entirely reached. It’s a learning
process.” 65
Andrea Bonilla, the General Manager of Lapa Rios, agrees. “The process of going through the
certification steps is very positive. CST evaluators came here for several days and then gave us
feedback and a due date. They said they would come back and see if we have made the changes.
This gave us a lot of idea and also was a way to confirm that we were doing most things right.
We’d developed these things sort of seat of the pants, on our own, and this helped confirm we
were doing well.” 66
62
63
64
65
66
Beatrice Blake, email communication with author, September 12, 2000.
Glenn Jampol, owner, Rosa Blanca Country Inn, Heredia, Costa Rica, interview, August 2002.
Pratt, interview, 2000.
Lizano, interview, 2000.
Andrea Bonilla, General Manager, Lapa Rios, interview, August 2002.
F. BUSINESS BUY-IN
Because CST is, at present, voluntary, businesses have the option to decide whether or not to
participate. Costa Rica’s original tourism industry—characterized as it was by small-scale,
locally-owned businesses, centered around protected areas, and often closely linked to scientific
research—has shown strong support for certification programs based on environmental and
ethical standards. As Amos Bien, writes, “Because many of the early nature tourism projects
grew out of scientific and conservation efforts, they considered environmental and ethical
principles to be fundamental to their philosophy and success. Hence, later abuses of the concept
of ‘ecotourism’ were seen against a background of intrinsically sound industry practices and a
great willingness by the industry itself to adopt environmental standards.” 67
Interviews with several other ecolodge owners confirmed this statement. John Lewis, owner of
Lapa Rios, an upscale ecolodge in the Osa Peninsula which has won a number of international
awards, says of CST: “It’s a great start. It’s a hundred times better than not having anything.”
Lapa Rios received 5 leaves in 2003. 68 Lewis compares his lodge’s positive experience with CST
to his experiences with other certification programs and eco-awards. He says that when Lapa
Rios received the British Airways’ Tourism for Tomorrow environmental award in 1995, “we
got membership automatically in Green Globe,” without any on-site inspection. He adds that
when he went to London and New York to receive the British Airways award, “I found we were
not important. We were simply there as an exhibit and British Airways was what was
important.” 69
Another ecolodge owner, former Costa Rica President Rodrigo Carazo, is also very supportive of
CST. “I think it is working very well,” he said in an interview. “I never thought they could do
what they are doing. Tourism ministries always think in terms of number of hotel rooms. When
they began to talk about paying attention to the environment, to things like water consumption, I
thought they were going to be rejected by the hotels. But this did not happen and CST is
growing bigger and stronger.” Carazo, who owns Villa Blanca, a medium-size ecolodge in
Alajeula which has also received 4 leaves from CST adds, “ICT seems always willing to learn
from the experiences of us, the hoteliers. They try to include our ideas. It’s a national team
around an idea, not just a government agency.” 70
However, as Bien notes, beginning in about 1992, “an ever increasing number of new
enterprises”-- including international investors and chains-- “entered the business without the
ethical underpinnings of the founders” 71 and many have little or no commitment to sound
environmental and social standards. There is wide concern, including from some of those
involved in advising CST, that it is too rapidly certifying some of these conventional tourism
hotels. Under most criticism has been CST’s awarding of level four (four leaves) to the Hotel
Herradura, a large hotel and convention center located on the highway running to San Jose’s
main airport. In interviews, a number of experts questioned how Herradura could receive the
67
Bien, “Environmental Certification”, pp. 133-134.
John Lewis, original co-owner, Lapa Rios, personal interview with author, Puerto Jimenez, August 2002. Website:
http://www.turismosostenible.co.cr/EN/directorio/hoteles_lista_uno.phtml?bn=70&ret=%2FEN%2Fdirectorio%2Fhotel_busq_bandas.phtml%3Fb
usqueda%3Dbanda%26banda%3D4.
69
Lewis, interview, August 2002.
70
Rodrigo Carazo, owner, Villa Blanca, personal interview with author, Escazu, August 2002.
71
Bien, “Environmental Certification,” p. 137.
68
same number of leaves as environmentally and socially responsible lodges like Rosa Blanca,
Lapa Rios, and Villa Blanca. “CST went out with such a wide range of hotels. Herradura just
cannot deserve one of the highest ratings,” said one expert. “I’ve stayed at the Herradura and
there’s nothing ecological about it,” said another. He suggests that the government may have
wanted for political reasons to have one large hotel with a high rating in order to encourage
others to participate and avoid it being labeled as simply a program for ecolodges. Lizano
concedes that some errors could have made because the auditors “didn’t have a lot of experience
when they started.” 72
There has been some criticism to certification from a handful of the older nature tourism
businesses. Most outspoken has been Michael Kaye, a New Yorker who has lived in Costa Rica
for some 25 years and is owner of Costa Rica Expeditions, one of the country’s oldest and most
respected nature-based tour operators. Although Kaye has been active in opposing large-scale
tourism projects in Costa Rica, he has, over the years, been critical of both the New Key and
CST certification programs, arguing that he’s never had a customer who has asked about his
company’s environmental practices. “Green seals of approval have been used as scams to get
free services and sell guidebooks in Costa Rica,” he charges. 73
In addition, a number of the small lodge owners are wary CST because it is run by the
government’s tourism ministry, ICT, which they view as tilted in favor of big operators. They
also argue that CST’s criteria requires too much paperwork and equipment, all of which is
difficult for owners of small lodges. As Luis Wilson, owner of the small Las Tortugas lodge on
Playa Grande, put it, “CST, they came and did a silly inspection. They did not ask any real
questions. Basically they looked to see if we had lots of silly equipment. We only have 11
rooms.” 74 Hotel Las Tortugas received only Level 1, one leaf. 75
While other small lodge owners have similar complaints and would like to see some changes in
CST, experts say that many of them are very interested –to use Jampol’s expression—“in getting
on the bus.” Leyla Solano, director of Cooprena that specializes in assisting cooperatives
including some community-based tourism projects, says, “We have much interest in
certification,” adding that two Cooprena coops have been certified at level one. But, she adds,
“the forms must be simple. CST is very complicated and its very technical.” Tourism and
conservation consultant Ana Baez, who is currently involved in a project canvassing small scale,
and modest to low end beach hotels in the Talamanca area has also found strong interest in
certification. The owners, most of whom are Costa Rican or Italian, are “100% willing to get
involved” but they lack information about how CST works and about how to make the necessary
technical improvements to become certified, reports Baez. Both experts say small operators must
be provided technical advise, training, financial assistance, and incentives so that they can adopt
the environmental reforms needed for certification, but do so within an integrated system and
framework. Baez says that for certification to be applicable to smaller and less capitalized
accommodations, “We need to work in stages, to improve services and practices, and to make the
standard stricter over time.”
72
Lizano and other interviews, August 2002.
Michael Kaye, “Michael’s Corner: How Green is My Vacation?” www.costaricaexpeditions.com/musings/howgreen/ and
personal email communications, 2000-2002.
74
Luis Wilson, owner, Hotel Las Tortugas, personal telephone interview with author, August 2002 and in-person interviews and
communications, 1996-2002.
75
Website: http://www.turismo-sostenible.co.cr/EN/directorio/hotel_busq_tipo.phtml?busqueda=tipo&tipo=2.
73
These and other experts say that while CST is doing a good job in setting environmental and
social standards for both larger hotels and upscale boutique resorts, it is not serving well the
ecolodges. Beatrice Blake says that of the 68 lodges on the New Key list, only seven currently
appear on the ICT list. She contends that many ecolodge owners either don’t know about CST or
are wary that it is too expensive and is biased towards big hotels. 76 Blake, Biaz, Solano, among
others, all said that some of these concerns could be helped if CST would adopts a separate set of
criteria for ecotourism. 77
Critics also charge that the CST survey only gives minimal attention to lodges that are involved
in responsible protection of the land or working to prevent logging, poaching, and other
environmental threats. In contrast, the New Key survey makes having a private reserve or being
closely aligned with a government reserve a prerequisite for being rated. It is these places that
have helped to give Costa Rica its reputation as an environmentally and socially responsible
destination.
FIGURE 5: HOME PAGE FROM CST WEBSITE
Source: www.turismo-sostenible.co.cr
G. CST MARKETING AND WEBSITE
CST’s main marketing tool has been its website whose construction was originally financed by
the U.S. Agency for International Development. Compared with many other certification
programs, CST has made its criteria and much of its auditing results public. Its criteria, as well as
76
77
Blake, written correspondence with author, September – November 2002.
Leyla Solano and Ana Baez, interviews with author, San Jose, Costa Rica, August 2002.
other details about CST, are posted on Spanish and English websites. 78 Survey results are also
posted so that a hotel’s strengths and weaknesses are public and results can be compared across
the entire sector.79 Lawrence Pratt explains that CST “decided to go for absolute transparency
because it wards against cheating and allow guests to download information on a hotel and check
details.” However, Marriott and some of the other larger hotels opposed making everything made
public, arguing that certain information is proprietary or confidential. Therefore a compromise
has been struck: “CST inspectors see everything but if the hotel doesn’t want the information to
go into CST files or up on the web, we agree. But our inspectors must satisfy themselves by
seeing all the information. We assure ourselves that the information exists.” explained Pratt. 80
There are, however, numerous problems with the CST website. It is hard to find and is not even
linked to the home pages of the hotels it had certified. It is not attractive and it does not delineate
the type of tourist experience offered by different accommodations. The website allows hotels to
be sorted three ways: by rating level (one to five leaves), by type (city, mountain and beach), and
by province. For the latter two, all certified hotels are listed without their ratings. This means that
a hotel that answered “no” to 60% to 80% of the questions in the survey (level one) are listed
next to a hotel that has a level three or four. Thus Amapola (owned by the environmentally
abusive Spanish hotel chain, Barcelo) is listed alongside a level three hotel, Si Como No, a 38room hotel which recycles gray water, uses low-voltage lighting and solar-heating, and operates
a private reserve that protects the watershed for the Manuel Antonio national park area. When
asked about this, CST officials indicated they had never noticed this flaw and pledged to fix it. 81
Three months later, no change had been made.
Even the listing by rating levels does not help give the tourist a sense of either the type of
experience offered by the hotel or the hotel’s role in the surrounding community. For instance,
side by side with level three ratings are the Marriott hotel, a center city hotel, and Rara Avis, a
rustic, rugged rural lodge that specializes in well-guided nature hikes, is actively preserving
habitat and providing benefits to the local community.. “It mixes apples and oranges and it
waters it down the real ecotourism places,” says one ecotourism expert who has studied the
website.
Other than the website, CST has so far done little to promote certified hotels and marketing
remains “a huge problem,” concedes Pratt.82 CST certified hotels are being promoted as part of
the government’s general international tourism marketing program, but, argues Glenn Jampol,
“ICT should be marketing only certified businesses.” Instead, he says, ICT hardly promotes CST
at trade events such as the annual EXPOTUR. 83 In addition, most of the accommodations now
have their own websites where they can post their CST eco-label. CST officials say that most inbound tour operators in Costa Rica know about the program. Jampol, owner of level 4 Rosa
Blanca, says he has yet to see any increase in visitors or other financial payoff for the
investments he made to get his high rating. He argues that CST must develop a good marketing
78
79
80
The websites are: www.turismo-sostenible.co.cr and http://www.turismo-sostenible.co.cr/EN/home.shtml .
In contract, New Key kept its results confidence, communicating its findings only to the owner. They feared if
they published their findings, hotels and lodges might refuse to take part in the eco-rating.
Pratt, interview, 2000.
Blake, written correspondence, July – November 2002; Interviews with Roberts, Lizano, Pratt, Bien, San Jose, Costa Rica,
August 2002.
82
Ibid, 2002.
83
Jampol, interview, 2002.
81
plan: “Sustainability has to economically work, or no hotel will ever join in,” he contends. He
proposes a range of carrot and stick incentives, from giving certified hotels lower interest rates
on credit cards to making CST certification compulsory for hotel licensing, just as the
government requires a five star quality rating in order to be licensed. 84 “Hopefully more tourists
will start making decisions based on green leaves. “ Jampol states. ICT Marketing Director
Roberts contends significant changes are in the works. He demonstrates a new logo with ICT’s
marketing slogan “Costa Rica: No Artificial Ingredients” and a CST green leaf in the corner.
“We’re incorporating CST and green leaf into our logo for ICT,” he contends. 85
H. BOTTLENECKS AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
One of CST’s long standing problems, however, is that it has never been well integrated into the
tourism institute. By mid-2000, 171 of the estimated 400 hotels in Costa Rica suitable for
certification had signed up to be certified. But only 47 had been certified; the remainder either
had not yet been audited or, if site visits were complete, the auditors had not submitted the
written evaluations to the National Accreditation Committee. For nearly a year, CST did no
auditing due to a bureaucratic dispute within the Institute for Costa Rican Tourism and a decision
to review and modify the criteria based on client feedback. 86 By 2004, only 37 hotels remained
certified within the system.
Even though the inspection process has been streamlined so that usually only one or two
inspectors goes on each site visit, CST’s technical staff is clearly too small to handle all the
hotels, let alone undertake certification for other sub-sectors of the tourism industry, such as tour
operators. Indeed, given ICT’s reputation for bureaucracy, lack of innovation, and bias towards
mass tourism and foreign-owned development projects, several of which have been
environmental disasters, many Costa Ricans remain skeptical that it can successfully run a
certification program based on sound and rigorous environmental and social criteria.
By late 2002, several “separation” plans, some more modest than others, were being discussed.
CST was moving towards outsourcing the site visits and auditing to government-authorized
private companies and NGOs. This would leave CST with the responsibility for oversight and
ensuring that all audits conform to the same standards. Others were discussing plans to break out
of ICT completely and set up a separate non-governmental organization, perhaps under the
umbrella of an international organization such as the World Trade Organization. It appears likely
that, in the not too distant future, CST will be set up as an independent body outside the
government with responsibility for awarding logos and the on-site audits handled by approved
but independent commercial companies or NGOs, while other entities, possibly university
departments, would provide technical advise to hotels and other businesses seeking
certification. 87 However, by early 2005, none of these plans had been executed, although
consultations were begun on the legal and logistic possibilities of outsourcing audits.
One aim of any reorganization will be to make CST more self-supporting. CST cannot continue
to do free audits free and it does not have the funds to hire private certifiers. Pratt says, “Hotels
must begin to pay to be audited. We want a fixed fee and then another additional one based on
84
85
86
87
“‘Sustainable Tourism’ Can Work, CR Shows the World,” Tico Times, January 28, 2000; Jampol, interview, 2002.
Roberts, interview, 2002.
Ibid.; Bien, Lizano, and others, interviews with author, August 2002.
Lizano, Roberts, Bien, Pratt, interviews, August 2002.
the size of the hotel.” But, he argues, payment should be made to independent, third party
auditors. CST should not become, like Green Globe (one of the best known international
certification programs), a for-profit program that charges hotels to get certified. “CST should not
make money off audits conducted by third parties,” argues Pratt. 88
There have been some concerns that CST’s current model contains a conflict of interest.
According to Toth’s report, the initial “orientation provided by ICT’s [CST’s] assessors could be
construed as [providing] training and consultation which can be interpreted as a conflict of
interest,” 89 analogous to a teacher walking students through the correct answers before giving a
test. CST argues, however, that overall it has been very useful during the initial stage to have
CST running the program in-house and to offer audits for free. It has facilitated getting the
program up and running, testing and modifying it, and helping it to gain credibility. However,
now that the program is successfully off the ground, it is important to make it financially
sustainable and to remove any question of conflict of interest by separating the three functions of
on-site auditing, training, and awarding logos.
I. EXPANSION & REORGANIZATION PLANS
As the internal problems remained largely hidden from public view, CST’s international
reputation continued to grow. By 2002, CST-like certification programs were rapidly being
adopted in other Latin American countries and beyond. Within Costa Rica, CST was taking a
page from the New Key model and developing a distinct set of criteria for ecolodges. It was also
on the verge of launching a new set of criteria to certify Costa Rican-based tour agencies, and
was laying plans to cover transportation and other sectors as well. Manuals and criteria for tour
operators had been developed and in the summer of 2002, were being tested on ten companies. In
addition, ICT is also underwriting and running the Blue Flag program in Costa Rica. Several of
the CST inspectors are also doing beach inspections for Blue Flag.[See Blue Flag section]
Reflecting on the national and international acclaim CST had achieved in just six years, Bary
Roberts mused, “I’m amazed at what we’ve come up with and how it’s progressed as a
government entity.” 90
Indeed, in response to criticism from many of the smaller lodge owners (as cited above) and
certification experts 91 , CST underwent a substantial revision in 2003. This revision has not been
implemented, however. In 2002, it began developing a separate set of criteria to be used in
certifying ecolodges. While the precise definition of what constitutes an ecolodge is not yet
unclear, this decision addresses one of the central criticisms of CST: that its current format lumps
together very different types of hotels, thereby making it difficult for consumers to tell what they
are buying. In addition, by distinguishing ecotourism businesses from more conventional ones
that are measured against a list of sustainable tourism criteria, this helps to highlight and promote
88
Pratt, interviews with author, 2000 – 2002.
Toth, 1998, p. 9.
90
Author’s interview with Bary Roberts, August 2002.
91
For instance, at the first international workshop on ecotourism and sustainable tourism certification programs, held in
November 2002 at the Mohonk Mountain House in New York, the 45 participants from 20 countries concluded that it was
important for certification programs to distinguish between ecotourism and sustainable tourism, by having a special set of
criteria for businesses operating in fragile or protected ecosystems. The results of this workshop, which was organized by the
author are found on website: http://www.ips-dc.org/ecotourism/index.htm. See also Martha Honey and Abigail Rome,
Protecting Paradise: Certification Programs for Sustainable Tourism and Ecotourism (Washington, DC: Institute for Policy
Studies, 2001).
89
Costa Rica’s nature-based tourism attractions. It is these, surveys consistently show, that lure
most visitors to Costa Rica. 92
In 2003, a concerted effort was made to make CST more amenable to use in other countries and
habitats by establishing an “international” version, which would then be used as the basis for a
revised version for use in Costa Rica. This effort, however, has not progressed to the stage of
public consultation or further implementation. There is, indeed, a debate within the ICT about
whether CST should be distributed internationally at all. Different factions within the
organization have different views of how widely CST should be distributed, and this indecision
has led to paralysis in vigorous forward movement. CST for tour operators, for example, was
verified in stakeholder workshops and field tested in 2002, the manuals were published in early
2003, but yet it had not been implemented by early 2005. This has led to a severe loss of
credibility among tour operators who had been enthusiastic about implementation of CST.
J. OVERALL ASSESSMENT
CST is one of the strongest tourism certification programs in operation today. What it has going
for it are its appropriate scope (a single country), its status as a government program, the
involvement of a broad range of other key stakeholders; its multi-dimensional questionnaire that
includes environmental, socio-cultural and economic aspects; its team of local auditors who
bring diverse expertise and a solid knowledge of Costa Rica; its multiple site visits; a scaled ecolabeling system that encourages improvement, and an educational approach that offers to help
hotels to meet the criteria. CST developed slowly, overcame initial resistance from the big
players, and has earned respectably wide support for its target sector, the hoteliers.
But, as CST is now positioning itself as a global model, it is important to look as well at its
shortcoming. Clearly, CST’s operations within Costa Rica need some improvement, whether it
stays within ICT or becomes independent. CST need to be put on a sound financial footing,
needs to develop a network of third-party certifiers, and needs to aggressively market the hotels
that receive eco-labels. Hotels will only make environmentally sustainable reforms and pay for
an audit if they see some benefits. Those benefits can be in cost-savings from adopting new
practices and in increased numbers and perhaps higher paying guests. The CST certification
program must help them to attain both.
In undergoing reform, CST can draw best practices from other programs. Clearly the New Key
program, though now it is far from vigorous, has demonstrated the need fora separate
ecotourism standard. The five star quality rating system demonstrates that tourism certification
programs don’t need to be completely voluntary, as is the current mantra among experts. Indeed,
as Jampol argues, it would give CST a tremendous financial and institutional boost if all hotels
were compelled to be CST certified in order to get an operating license from the government. As
92
For instance, a 2002 study commissioned by ICT found that 92.2% of U.S. tourists to Costa Rica said they planned to “walk
on the beach” and 82.4% said they planned to “visit national parks or wilderness areas,” while 49% said they planned to “go to
a casino, gamble.” Interestingly, despite the expansion of golf courses and the popularity of the game in the U.S., golf did not
even show up as a preferred activity in this survey with North Americans arriving in Costa Rica. Exhibit IV-6, “Likelihood of
Participating in Selected Activities,” Menlo Consulting Group, Americans as International Travelers: Focus on Costa Rica,
prepared for Instituto Costarricense de Turismo, February 2002, p. 23.
Jampol puts it, “The CST is an extraordinarily important concept. Today tourists talk about five
stars like it’s an adjective. We need them to do the same with CST's green leaves.” 93
7. Evaluating Ecotourism in Costa Rica
Ecotourism has become the backbone of Costa Rica’s tourist industry. Although most tourists
stay in the city and visit the beach, they are attracted to Costa Rica because of its reputation as a
nature tourism destination. Visitors, even business travelers, therefore tend to engage in nature or
ecotourism, as well as visit the beach, the museums, and the volcanoes. Costa Rica has become a
mildly diversified destination, but whose focus is nature and conservation.
The very success of ecotourism in Costa Rica has, however, increased the threats to it. Many
businesses now exist that offer “soft nature” or even false attractions, without complying with
what are considered the imperatives of true ecotourism: interpretation of nature and culture for
visitors, direct contact with nature, and active support for the conservation of nature and the
surrounding communities. Mass tourism has tried to masquerade as ecotourism in some cases,
going as far as labeling golf courses as “ecological” because of a few mild environmental
mitigation measures.
Costa Rica’s success has also inspired many other developing countries and some developed
countries to imitate it. In most cases, these imitations have not managed to combine the elements
that led to Costa Rica’s success, but other countries, such as Ecuador, have successfully added
new elements and far greater cultural and biological diversity to their tourist offerings, and
represent true competition to Costa Rica.
In a response to maintain Costa Rica’s leadership, many ecotourism businesses have formed an
association, the Costa Rican Chamber of Ecotourism (CANAECO), which is establishing codes
of conduct and acting as a lobbying body in favor of small to medium ecotourism businesses.
The ICT has also begun to recognize, at all levels, the importance to Costa Rica as a whole of
maintaining its leadership in nature tourism as its principal attractor. The Ministry of the
Environment (MINAE) has also begun to see ecotourism as the best way to maintain the
financial viability of the country’s extensive system of protected areas, and is making a
concerted effort to implement truly sustainable ecotourism in national parks.
All this is against a background of increasing mass tourism and beach development. It is not
clear which tendency will win out, but many people in the tourist industry do not believe that
both tendencies can co-exist: Costa Rica could become a mass tourism destination, with large
numbers of low-cost visitors and much leakage of income to the source countries, or it could
focus on its current strengths as a leader in nature-based tourism, with a strong ecotourism
component and a diversified product. What has become clear, however, is that to maintain its
leadership, the country must try to reduce greenwashing, control the destruction of beach areas
by mass tourism, and continue to innovate in developing new approaches to ecotourism.
8. Evaluating CST and Other Certification Programs
The role of certification programs, such as CST, in Costa Rica, has been underexploited because
of bureaucratic and political distortions. CST could have been, and could still be, a major form of
93
Jampol, interview, August 2002.
distinguishing Costa Rica from other destinations and ensuring the maintenance of its existing
leadership in nature-based tourism. The enthusiasm of the industry, however, has been severely
diminished by the inability of the ICT to focus on a single strategy, implement incentives based
on certification, or promote certified businesses. These difficulties seem to have their origins in
indecision and factionalism within the sponsoring body, the ICT. The consequence is that the
leadership that Costa Rica had in 1997, when the program was inaugurated, has become disdain
for ineffectiveness in 2004. The program itself is considered of high quality, but now two sectors
of the local and international tourist industry have begun to attack the very concept of
certification, using this ineffective implementation as a demonstration.
The sectors that have attacked certification are a few (not a majority) of large tour operators who
feel that certification, although voluntary, interferes with their free choice in selecting the
businesses to incorporate within their catalogs. A more serious criticism is from small and
microbusinesses, especially in ecotourism. They have expressed their fear that CST and other
certification programs might tend to promote larger businesses, because the latter have more
working capital and staff to implement the required changes in operating procedures and
equipment. Finally, a number of ecotourism businesses in Costa Rica have rejected CST, as it
currently stands, because they feel that a certification system that includes large urban hotels
should not be the same system by which they are evaluated. Many of these same businesses have
indicated that they would support a credible CST ecotourism certification program, and fell that
such a program is necessary. The ICT has expressed itself as favoring this option.
Some confusion has ensued from the development of the Iniciativa Centroamérica Verde (ICV),
which is a Central American ecotourism marketing program whose entry requirements have
been confused in Nicaragua with a certification program. The country has also developed its
own Ecological Blue Flag program (BAE). An effort is now underway to try to make this
compatible with the international Blue Flag program of FEE, but only the highest level of BAE
is equivalent to Blue Flag international certification. Because both CST and BAE have been
developed and operated by the government, there are grave operational problems in cooperating
with external entities and giving the programs the necessary flexibility to compete.
While the tourist industry is looking for international recognition and compatibility, the
government agencies are unwilling or unable to fully cooperate with international accreditation
efforts, although CST has shared its criteria with the Certification Network of the Americas for
work on harmonization throughout the hemisphere. CST appears unable, for a number of
reasons, to participate in or promote the effective marketing of certified businesses.
9. Conclusions
Costa Rica has been a success story in effectively marketing itself as a destination for nature
tourism and ecotourism. Much of this success, however, was because of historical circumstances
and small to medium private initiatives, not through deliberate planning. In large part, in fact,
government planning has been irrelevant or even counterproductive towards promoting or
maintaining Costa Rica’s enviable market position. It is only since 2000, in fact, that the
politicians and planners of the Tourist Board (ICT) even became aware of Costa Rica’s
positioning.
In spite of the ICT’s weak or absent support for the most effective sector of the tourist industry in
Costa Rica, a few visionary functionaries were able to establish two effective programs based on
the country’s demonstrated success: a highly successful advertising campaign based on the
slogan “Costa Rica: no artificial ingredients” and the Certification for Sustainable Tourism
(CST) program. Both of these efforts received enthusiastic initial support from the private sector,
but the CST program, one of the best-designed in the world, has fallen into irrelevance and
disregard, because of the government sponsor’s inability to overcome bureaucratic infighting and
lack of a clear direction. The highly successful advertising campaign has also suffered from the
political influence of large mass tourism businesses who have blunted its clear message
promoting the country on its strengths as a nature destination.
Nevertheless, Costa Rica’s sustainable tourism industry continues to grow rapidly and is
becoming more environmentally and socially conscious. The ICT has finally become aware of
the country’s strengths, although this is reflected more by career functionaries than by the
political leadership. Most of the counter-productive activities of the ICT have been halted, and
strategic planning for the next ten years is now based on the concepts of “sustainability”. As it
has for the last twenty years, the private sector, comprised in more than 80% of small to medium
enterprises, has taken the leadership in promoting the country and “greening” itself. Communitybased initiatives, with strong support from international donors, have also been growing very
rapidly.
The circumstances that permitted the country to establish world leadership in nature-based
tourism were purely historical – a long history of academic natural history research, national
park preservation, the absence of war and a military in a turbulent region, numerous small
businesses built on theses foundations, and a Nobel Peace Prize for the country’s president.
However, Costa Rica’s successes and failures are applicable to other countries and destinations,
Costa Rica’s tourism model was itself consciously based on the successes in the 1970s of
destinations such as Kenya and Guatemala, which were world leaders at the time, while trying to
avoid the obvious pitfalls of the decadent mass-tourism models of Acapulco, Cancun, the
Dominican Republic, and the south of Spain.
Costa Rica achieved success in nature tourism although its biological and cultural diversity is
much lower than that of many other countries. This was because of the early detection of a strong
latent market for activities based on this diversity, an emphasis on excellent interpretation, and
direct contact between the client and the surrounding natural and cultural environment. Costa
Rica also positioned itself very early on with the editorial press, the travel press, and the Internet.
The industry developed with the benign neglect of the government in terms of planning,
fortunately, because the official policy during the early part of this period emphasized large
hotels and golf. As the number of businesses has exploded, competitive pressure has led to
numerous innovations and a dramatic increase in quality of service and infrastructure. The initial
casually successful interpretation component, based on the country’s long history of natural
history research, has become institutionalized, with very strong guide training programs run by
the private sector. All sectors of the industry, including city hotels, beach hotels and resorts,
congresses, and conventions, are now aware of their dependence on the country’s image as a
nature destination and make some effort to protect and enhance this. The nature tourism
operators have also become aware of how visitors almost invariably combine nature with
beaches, shopping, museums, and even casinos, while even the most conventional international
meeting or convention offers nature tours to its participants. A strong editorial support has
developed, with dozens of books describing in great detail the natural history of Costa Rica.
Academic programs in ecotourism and sustainable tourism have supplied a large number of key
figures in government, donor agencies, and the private sector with sound training in the
fundamentals of sound environmental, social, and business practice.
CST became a prestigious program within the small world of certification and it was proposed
and accepted as possible system for all of Central America, but has now been restricted to Costa
Rica and the border areas of Panama and Nicaragua. There has been a strong desire expressed by
the ecotourism sector to develop a separate ecotourism certification based on CST. CST for tour
operators has been paralyzed for two years after its full development, and as of February 2005,
had not been released. It is likely that if it is not released during early 2005, some tour operators
will seek international certification, such as Green Globe 21.
The underlying reasons for Costa Rica’s inability to effectively market its certification programs
or extend their use (even though they are currently free of charge) is a direct consequence of
their development and ownership by the government. Government instances, such as the tourist
board’s legal department and internal audits, the controller general’s office (financial control),
and the procurer general’s office (legal control), have emitted highly restrictive and often
contradictory, but legally binding edicts effectively limiting the sort of marketing and
outsourcing that would make CST harmonize with other programs worldwide and effectively
promote certified businesses.
Among the lessons applicable to other countries and certification programs are a series of
positive and negative experiences. On the positive side:
! Development of the CST system through the government allowed it to be implemented
free of charge. This allowed the certification of a large number of hotels in the first
phase, even though there was not yet any market demand. This is a precondition for
establishing market demand. A similar phenomenon occurred with BAE certification of
beaches.
! The high credibility that CST achieved outside of Costa Rica was because of the use of
highly technical criteria and a certification-accreditation board independent of the
auditing and criteria development. Outside evaluation by credible, independent experts
also enhanced the value of the program.
! The difficulty of reaching the highest level of certification has had a strong positive
effect, in that it is obvious that the award is not given lightly, that the hotels that comply
at this level are exemplary, and these hotels themselves have become strong advocates of
the program.
! The many international sustainable tourism certification programs that have been based
in whole or in part on CST has enhanced the reputation of both CST and Costa Rica.
! These factors have led to growing industry demand for their own certification standards
within Costa Rica by tour operators and ecotourism enterprises. This has been in spite of
many hotels dropping out of the CST program.
On the negative side:
! Because government institutions in many developing countries lack credibility with
businesses and the general population, government sponsorship and operation of the
program caused it to be viewed with suspicion by many stakeholders. This is totally the
inverse of the situation of many certification programs in Europe and the United States,
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
where government sponsorship has enhanced the credibility of programs such as
EnergyStar, USDA organic, Nature’s Best, etc.
The unwillingness of the government sponsors of the program to seriously contemplate
periodic revisions of the norm or full cooperation with national and international efforts
towards accreditation have undermined the credibility and goodwill of the program.
While part of this is because of bureaucratic and legal obstacles, more of it appears due
to fear of losing control of the program. This fear of changing a good thing has led to
negative perceptions of the program.
The failure to release CST for tour operators, two years after its full development, has
lead to serious doubts in the industry about the seriousness of its sponsor’s commitment
and capacities.
The numerous incidents in which the inability or unwillingness of CST and BAE
functionaries to travel to international meetings to which they have been invited and to
which they have confirmed participation has been interpreted outside Costa Rica as
arrogance and unwillingness to cooperate. This has also been true of important meetings
within Costa Rica, for which there should have been no institutional or bureaucratic
obstacles to participation.
Inconsistent policy attributable to changes in the politically appointed minister of tourism
caused the program to lose inertia, as have budgetary and hiring restrictions imposed by
the central government on all institutions.
Bureaucratic slowness and inertia has caused frustration in the tourist industry in Costa
Rica, which has started to consider alternative certification programs.
Most seriously, the inability of the government sponsors of CST to comply with their
initial promises of extensive promotion and other incentives for certified businesses has
caused many businesses to drop out of the program, even though it is free of charge. This
inability is in part due to official government rules about government promotion of
private businesses, as well as budgetary and institutional difficulties.
The other most serious setback for the program in attributable to institutional uncertainty
about the legality of many actions and internal infighting. The resulting paralysis for
almost two years led to a loss of credibility within Costa Rica.
The lessons applicable to other programs might be summarized as:
! Government sponsorship can enhance credibility in those countries where the
government is perceived as honest, but not where this does not hold.
! Government sponsorship can reduce start-up costs and allow establishing an initial
critical mass of certified businesses.
! Government bureaucratic inertia, Byzantine rules, budgetary restrictions, and changes in
political leadership can stifle program development.
! Credibility is enhanced by cooperation with international efforts.
! Periodic revision and correction of certification standards and criteria enhances
credibility.
! Promising increases in occupancy and promotion through certification can be
counterproductive until such time as there is true market demand for certified products.
! In general, not complying with promises of incentives, services, or improvements leads
to loss of credibility.
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