by Rod Hughes
At least two businesses prominent in the nation’s tourism industry have said a hearty “NO!” to sex tourists.
If this seems a small gesture, contemplate this: Of the country’s $1.7 billion annual tourism income, up to 10% is based upon sexual encounters, reports the English-language weekly The Tico Times. No fewer than 40 Web sites tout the country as a sex paradise and 50 establishments specialize in it. So the two businesses took their economic lives in their hands—and risk legal sanctions for discrimination—in taking the stand.
The Mary Marta Group, which owns two Best Western hotels in the country, began to turn away prostitutes last year. (There are some 10,000 sex workers in the country, the paper says, many of whom are immigrants and many who specialize in servicing tourists.)
Prostitution is legal in this country and this makes rejecting sex workers a tricky process.
Jacobo Schifter, professor emeritas at Heredia’s National University, estimates in his on line book on sexual tourism that “Sex workers who cater to tourists are making more money than the average Costa Rican doctor, lawyer, professor or even (President) Oscar Arias.
Rodrigo Coto, corporate director of Best Western Irazú Hotel, admits that identifying prostitutes is “a major process” in educating reception desk and security to identify prostitutes and added, “It’s not easy when you have a drunken guest at the front desk.” But he defends the hotel’s legal right to refuse a prostitute’s entry.
Marvin Carvajal, professor of constitutional law at the University of Costa Rica, is not too sure. He cites two previous court decisions which were found for the plaintiff on discrimination grounds, one in which a young man with long hair was refused entrance to a mall and the other when a black woman was denied entry to a discoteque. So denying entry because of garish dress or other profiling could be a no-no. On the other hand, he states that hotels have a right to deny certain activities and do so for smoking, drinking or holding large events that could damage their infrastructure.
Coto, despite a $45,000 shortfall during the first year of its policy, is betting on long-term benefits, sprucing up the hotel’s image and avoiding unpleasantness such as prostitutes robbing their clients or drunken clients’ obnoxious behavior.
Another such company is the pioneer travel agency here, Swiss Travel, which, along with Calypso Cruises and Costa Rican Expeditions, helped get the country’s tourism boom going when many people still confused this country with Puerto Rico. They also prohibit prostitution in their establishments. In 2004, Swiss Travel signed up with the child welfare agency Paniamor to “protect children and adolescents against commercial sexual exploitation.
The government, blocked from action by constitutional issues, can do little more than make disapproving sounds about this category of tourism. As Tourism Minister Carlos Benavides says, “Sex tourism is against Costa Rican values and traditions…Costa Rica already has enough attractions.”