Costa Rica seeks to attract more tourism from South America. Therefore, it organized an activity with the presence of businessmen, tourism authorities and Chilean and Argentine diplomats.
During the networking breakfast, a public-private alliance was held, organized by the Association Grupo Pro Imagen, the Argentine ambassador to the country, Patricia Giménez; Chile’s ambassador, Oscar Alcamán, as well as Aline Fregnani, head of strategic tourism alliances for the Latam airline.
Luis Madrigal, market coordinator of the Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT) and María Amalia Revelo, Minister of Tourism also participated.
The activity was carried out prior to a seminar that will take place in October in the capital cities of Buenos Aires, in Argentina, and Santiago de Chile, in order to make Costa Rica known and increase the number of tourists visiting the country.
South America is a new market and although the economic situation is complex in Argentina, tourists still arrive. In Chile we know that we have to position ourselves, while the great South American market is Brazil where we have many opportunities. Peru is another very important market that we can develop,”
explained María Amalia Revelo.
For Patricia Giménez, Costa Rica has a lot of wealth to offer not only for tourists but for entrepreneurs in the Southern Cone, to develop business.
For us it is important to learn more about the diversity of the country to offer mutual destinations, we hope that this way we can bring many Ticos to Argentina and have many Argentines here.”
Chilean diplomat Oscar Alcamán believes tourists from his country visit Costa Rica for the different climate, since Chile has deserts, mountain ranges, and glaciers, but not a tropical climate. He also highlighted urban tourism and architectural heritage of churches and historical buildings as some of the aspects that the country can exploit, since the Chilean tourist likes to make urban routes.
In addition, Costa Rican tourism companies participated last July in a business tour in the US cities of Dallas and Houston, both in the state of Texas. The tour was led by the Grupo Pro Imagen with the mission of supporting companies and organizing training spaces for tourism agents in the United States so that they get to know the Costa Rican tourism market better.