In this context, Travel2latam spoke with Carolina Trejos, Marketing Director of the Costa Rican Tourism Institute.
What are the objectives of the ICT in participating in Fitur again?
We are coming with more stands and also with 42 companies from all our tourism product. Being here is our first step in Europe, it allows us to set the path of work and growth for the region, which is where we hope growth will come from for Costa Rica in the coming years, so it is strategically important to be at FITUR.
This event opens the year. What plans does the ICT have that you can share with us?
As for the tourism product, we continue to push and promote our experience product, especially for Europeans who value their trip very highly. We also want to be able to highlight the community and gastronomic products that have value in this region. On the other hand, we seek to promote the new hotel product that is coming to the North Pacific, in Papagayo Guanacaste, with new hotels in the next two years focused on a luxury segment with major brands recognized worldwide. We have a great deal of work to do together with these companies and hotels to position their product. And the great objective of every year, which never ends and is always a pending task, is to increase the air capacity to our destinations.
This event is ideal for that because there are major airlines, both European and Latin American…
Yes. These are long processes, but it is certainly still important for us to increase our capacities in Spain and especially to be able to go deeper into important markets outside Madrid, such as Barcelona, to increase our capacity in Germany and to be able to serve Costa Rica from other markets other than Frankfurt for Germany. We are looking for new routes and new markets, and in the near future we would like to see connectivity and the Portuguese market growing or Scandinavian countries reaching Costa Rica.
There will surely be news in the coming months regarding South America because of upcoming events such as the Anato Tourism Showcase and WTM in Sao Paulo.
We will be there, we will see you in Anato and in Sao Paulo. We have also been participating in the ILTM in Brazil for the luxury segment since last year, and of course Argentina and Chile are always on our sights as pending tasks to present ourselves. We are also looking at Colombia and our dear friends in Lima and Panama who help us transport all South Americans to Costa Rica.