Building Tourism Industry Support for CAFTA Costa Rica

What: A concentrated effort to build public and tourism industry support in Costa Rica for the US-Central America Free Trade Agreement.

The specific purpose of this assignment was to assist the Government of Costa Rica (GOCR) with its efforts to build public support for the US-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Our tourism and trade specialist spoke on trade issues at meetings with industry leaders and seminars sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Trade of Costa Rica (COMEX) in conjunction with the National Tourism Chamber.

We presented discussions on the following topics:

Online Marketing

How online marketing can benefit the tourism industry/company.
Expanded online travel sales as contributors to the Costa Rican economy.

Small Tourism Businesses

Tools that tourism SMEs can use to grow
Importance of business management (marketing, sales, customer service, among others) for SMEs

Business Management

Importance of customer service for tourism businesses
Importance of technology in tourism service marketing
Requirements for efficient management of tourism businesses

Rural Tourism

Rural Tourism as an economic activity/income generator
Marketing of rural tourism
Effects of tourism on rural and deprived zones