WTM London 2022: "Great Britain Is a Major Market for Costa Rica"
Caribbean News Digital spoke with Costa Rica's Minister of Tourism about the sector's projections for the near future
By Veronica de Santiago
The British market is a very important market for us, it is the number one in Europe at the moment. So our goal is to recover the numbers of 2019, and we are already very close to doing so by 2023, explained to Caribbean News Digital William Rodríguez López, Costa Rica's Minister of Tourism, who is attending the World Travel Market in London, United Kingdom.
That means achieving the seats we had direct from London to San José in 2019, explained the Minister, who added that air connectivity with Europe has already recovered pre-pandemic levels with countries such as Spain and Germany, but has not been achieved with Switzerland, France and the Netherlands.
Asked about Costa Rica's tourism sustainability projections, Rodríguez López said that his country has a very clear positioning in this field, which uses the three axes: not only the environmental, but also the social and economic. And for that we are, permanently, looking at a series of instruments that allow us to perfect this concept of sustainability.
One of them is the free carbon, at the moment in a process of development from an organization of the Ministry of Energy of Costa Rica so that those who visit the country pay their carbon footprint, explained Rodríguez López.
We have another series of actions that come to reinforce that, because we cannot stay at the point where we are, since all countries are moving in that direction and we must do new and different things to maintain our leadership, he said.
In this regard, he mentioned training, both at the national level and at the level of incoming tourists, so that waste is better disposed of, and stressed that his country produces 98 percent of its energy with renewable products. "What we have as a goal is to reach one hundred percent."
In addition to focusing on the United States and Europe, Costa Rica also has Mexico among its connection priorities. The Minister said that, eventually, if Costa Rica joins the Pacific Alliance, Colombia will be another important destination.
Regarding cruise ships, he mentioned that this 2022-2023 season is the biggest we are having, with a 200 percent increase, but pointed out that cruise passengers are not counted as tourists because their stay is only 12 hours.
He pointed out, however, that they are an important source of income for the country, since they spend a lot of money, especially in the coastal areas. This year we started with the exploration cruises, he said, which are smaller, but spend more, and do not dock in the big ports.
