Costa Rica Puts on a Show For Toronto Agents

There’s no rainy season in Costa Rica, travel agents were told Wednesday night. But there is a green one.

Costa Rica Tourism officials have a pretty great product to sell, but they’re not above putting a different kind of spin on things.

Speaking to a crowd of more than 100 agents in downtown Toronto, officials said there are two seasons in Costa Rica; “a dry season and a green season.”

Later they confessed that it does sometimes rain in their part of Central America, but that means less crowds and more animals in action than you might during the hot, dry parts of the year.

Costa Rica Tourism spokesman Freddy Lizano told TravelPulse Canada that agents play a key role in bringing Canadians to his country.

“We need agents to help us reach three million yearly visitors,” Lizano said. “And Canadians are a big part of our business.”

Lizano said Canada makes up 20 per cent of the visitation market in Costa Rica and that Canadians trail only Americans in terms of overall numbers.

“Canada is a big opportunity for us,” he said.

Lizano said Costa Rica has only a handful of all-inclusive resorts.

“The joy of visiting my country is to travel around and see three or four places, because it’s so diverse. We have four types of forest. There’s the Pacific side and the Caribbean side. You can go diving, snorkelling, surfing, zip-lining, bird-watching, kayaking, canoeing, hiking, horseback riding; you name it. We have amazing caves and active volcanoes, where you can walk up to the edge of the crater. We have thermal waters and natural hot springs and mud baths.

“It’s also a very safe country,” he said. “I wouldn’t park my car with valuables in it and go hiking at a national park for the day, but it’s very safe.”

Agents were told the literacy rate in Costa Rica is 97 per cent and that 98 per cent of the energy used in the country comes from renewable sources. It’s a small country (only 116 kilometers across at its narrowest point), but it has more bird species (922) than Canada and the U.S. combined, officials said.

“We have six types of toucan and 18 species of parrots,” one presenter told agents. “We’re small, but we have 6.3 per cent of the animal species in the world.”

The country’s two international airports (San Jose and Liberia) are served by 25 airlines, including Air Canada, WestJet and Sunwing, officials said.

Costa Rica also is the oldest democracy in Latin America. Spanish is the official language, but English is widely spoken in tourist areas.

Agents last night dined on Costa Rican specialty dishes and also divvied up five FAM trips.