Q & A wih Carlos Ricardo Benavides Tourism Minister of Costa Rica WTM 2006 – London

by Jose Carlos de Santiago

Carlos Ricardo Benavides took office as Costa Rica tourism minister in May, and shortly after that he took oath as chairman of the Central America Tourism Council. Nobody could shed more light on the reasons that moved Costa Rica to skip the recently concluded edition of the Central America Travel Market in Honduras.

Q.- We’d like to know your opinión about Costa Rica’s decision of skipping the Central America Travel market in Honduras and your country’s position toward U.S. tour operators.

A.- For Costa Rica it was indeed a painful decision not to attend this year’s Central America Travel Market. And I say it’s painful because Costa Rica has supported the region’s efforts from the word go to promote the region’s as a solid travel destination in the long-haul markets. We would have liked very much to attend this fair because we have missed out on a good chance to mutually benefit from the tradeshow in terms of businesses and contacts. Nonetheless, I must say this decision was never taken in the heat of the moment. I twas thoroughly thought out and assessed every step of the way.

Back in 2002, during a summit of Central American Presidents, the region’s seven nations agreed to work on promotion as a solid travel destination only for outbound markets in Europe and Asia. As you know, Costa Rica has been working hard over the past thirty years to get a toehold of the travel market, and right now North America is by far its number-one outbound market, accounting for nearly three quarters of the total number of international visitors.

The 2002 agreements ruled out the possibility of advertising the region as a solid travel destination in the U.S. market because we’re convinced the promotional efforts of the region as a whole could put Costa Rica’s travel industry in harm’s way after thirty long years. It’s like forcing Spain to solely promote itself under the Europe brand and making it forget about its top outbound markets.

Honduran authorities decided to invite U.S. travel agencies and tour operators to this year’s Central America Travel Market under the pretext of trying to clinch a successful tradeshow. This invitation to American tourism organizations autormatically broke the 2002 agreements and failed to make good on a promise we had vowed to keep.

Nobody got hurt deeper than Costa Rica for the decision to skip the tradeshow in Honduras. Nobody else could feel more sorrow than our country. We would have cut a number of deals with other travel destination at the fair; our businesspeople would have conducted successful sessions with their peers. However, we made the decision of ruling outselves out of this year’s edition in an effort to enforce some respect for international law.

Q.- Part of the Costa Rican private sector didn’t see eye to eye with this exclusion. Several tour operators told us they were sort of oriented not to attend the fair in Honduras. Nevertheless, some of them did attend the tradeshow.

A.- Private tour operators act more like independent individuals. In a democracy, every person has the right to speak his or her mind, but a country’s decisions are made by those who must make them.

In the case of Costa Rica, the government made up its mind before the Board of Directors of the Costa Rican Tourism Institute and the Ministry of Tourism. From the perspective of the private sector, there are several chambers and organizations across the country. The fact that some members of the private sector –due to commercial or business reasons of their own- didn’t agree with the decision is a totally different ballgame. That’s supposed to happen in any country on the face of the earth.

Q.- You’re holding down a couple of posts right now. You’re the Costa Rican tourism minister on one hand and the chief of the Central American association on the other. You may now be split between these two posts because you didn’t attend the fair in Honduras as the acting chief of the organization. Isn’t that a Catch-22 situation?

A.- My presence as acting chief of the organization would have been viewed and chased in on by others as that of the Costa Rican tourism minister. I think it was absolutely unnecessary. First of all, I would have attended the tradeshow in Honduras as the Costa Rican tourism minister.

I made myself very clear, we signed a joint communique, the hosting minister and myself, a peaceful document in which both of us laid bare our positions on this issue. I wasn’t willing to attend an event that breaks the rules of the organization because, to put it this way, the president of any organization shouldn’t be doing something that goes againts the entity’s principles and guidelines.

Q.- You’ll be meeting two weeks from now. In the face of a possible denial by other nations to toe the line as far as the organization’s statutes are concerned, could Costa Rica jump ship?

A.- I believe we need to overhaul our ideas correctly. There are guidelines and rules in place and we have to abide by them. Perhaps that question must be asked all the way around. Could those nations that don’t want to stick to the rules jump ship if those rules prevail? We are part of an organization that has a set of rules we’re very pleased with.

Q.- What does Costa Rica expect from the European market now that the country has embarked on a much aggressive promotional policy?

A.- We’re deeply interested in the European market. I believe that in line with the research we’ve conducted recently, it’s very clear to all of us that the European market fits perfectly into the kind of tourist product the country has to offer. European tourists visiting Central America are well-educated people with travel interests and concerns that go hand in hand with Costa Rica’s products: environmental protections, sustainability, corporate responsibility. We ought to take advantage of those coincidences.

Moreover, Costa Rica does not depend heavily on one particular outbound market. Even though we welcome American tourists with open arms and the U.S. accounts for nearly 75 percent of our market, we know we can strike a better balance if we start receiving more visitors from other parts of the world, especially from Europe.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Europe is a key outbound market for Costa Rica. European trekkers stay for a good deal of nights, they earn good wages in their countries of origin and they are willing to shell out a lot of money in our countries. I think it’s worth making these efforts; they are really going to pay off.