Tourism minister opposes competition in Limón, Guanacaste
The tourism minister wants no part of plans to set up promotional agencies in Guanacaste and in Limón.
In fact, the tourism minister, former lawmaker Carlos Ricardo Benavides, said he would rather set up his own eight regional offices with five employees each.
Benavides said last week that the twin proposals in the Asamblea Legislativa would weaken his Instituto Costarricense de Turismo.
The measure came up for a vote Wednesday in the Comisión con Potestad Legislativa Plena Segunda. Members affiliated with the Partido Acción Ciudadana wanted to postpone action on the measures, a move that might have meant killing them. The move failed. Both Guanacaste and the Provincia de Limón heavily supported Óscar Arias Sánchez in the last presidential election and led to his victory over the Partido Acción Ciudadana candidate.
Tourism operators on both coasts want the independent promotional agencies to focus on their own areas.
The tourism institute has been weak in the promotional department. A $840,000 Web page has generated few reservations. The page has a traffic ranking of 157,752 according to Alexa, the Amazon.Com company that provides such services. It has been as low as 228,254. By comparison, The Tico Times today is 114,092, A.M. Costa Rica is 43,806. and La Nación is 9,375. Yahoo is the No. 1 most visited site and MSN is No. 2.
The tourism institute also spent $4.5 million ostensibly to promote the country during the World Cup soccer championships, but officials admitted that they had no idea on how to measure their response.
Benavides also told lawmakers in his visit last week he did not want any competition with the tourism institute. The institute collects a tax on every tourism hotel bill and other tourist expenditures.