Tourist Number for Costa Rica: 2 Million Expected in December
November 25th, 2008 | by admin |The first week in December is when tourist number 2.000.000 will arrive, marking an historic moment for the country. To mark the event, the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo (ICT) is preparing a reception party worthy of a hero.
The announcement was made by Allan Flores, manager of the ICT, during the inauguration of a new Sansa service in Liberia.
“We are preparing an enormous reception, one filled with many surprises”, said Flores.
Tourist 2 million will have, among other goodies, free hotel accommodations, free tours of the country and will always be welcome to Costa Rica, explained Flores.
The ICT official explained that, according to their calculations, the first week in December is when tourist 2.000.000 is expected to cross the immigration lines at the Juan Santamaría airport.
In 1999, Costa Rica broke the one million tourist barrier.
Flores added that the projection for increase visitors this season over last has been reduced to between 6% and 9% when only a couple of months ago the projection was 15%.
The financial crisis around the world is being blamed for the drop. The World Tourism Organization (WTO) has also revised its projections from 6% to 2%.
Flores said that Costa Rica will see, at minimum, three times more tourists than the rest of the world based on the WTO projections.
In 2007, Costa Rica received 1.9 million tourists, a growth of 11.7% over 2006.
Tourism in Costa Rica depends generally on the economic well being of the United States. In 2007, figures show that 40% of all tourists came from the U.S.
