STUDY TOUR COSTA RICA: KNOWING BEST PRACTICES TO POSITION COLOMBIA AS A WORLD-CLASS SUSTAINABLE TOURIST DESTINATION
In order to learn about the best practices in promoting a sustainable destination, PROCOLOMBIA and ACOTUR, with the support of SIPPO, carried out a Study Tour to Costa Rica together with 22 businessmen from the industry, learning first-hand about the sustainable tourism development model of Costa Rica.
In order to learn about the best practices in promoting a sustainable destination, PROCOLOMBIA and ACOTUR, with the support of SIPPO, carried out a Study Tour to Costa Rica together with 22 businessmen from the industry, learning first-hand about the sustainable tourism development model of Costa Rica.
"From Colombia to Costa Rica" was called the study tour, in a 7-day exploratory business mission to learn about nature tourism and the promotion of sustainable tourist destinations in a country that has been a world reference in Tourism Sustainability. Its objective was to complement Colombia's positioning strategy as a nature tourism destination, seeking to be recognized as the number one at regional level. The mission was attended by the consulting firms Regenera ONG and Ecole Travel.
This learning mission aimed to enhance the capacity of Colombian exporting entrepreneurs specialized in nature tourism, providing them with tools to raise their level of technical specialization and strengthen the tourism orientation process in new niches such as butterflies, amphibians and wildlife.
Among the lessons learned from this mission are the importance of developing sustainable business models, the implementation of good practices that lead to obtaining seals and certifications, the development of adequate infrastructure in areas with high tourism potential, the development of specialized campaigns in nature tourism, tax incentives for conservation, among other components.
Additionally, the purpose of this visit was to learn about Costa Rica's experience in the generation of sustainable tourism indicators and how this allows for greater competitiveness and better management of the destination, particularly knowing in depth the measurement of the Progress Index, which allows measuring the impact of tourism in the country, not because of the traditional indicators of the number of tourists or foreign exchange generated, but because of the real impact that tourism has in terms of human development index in the communities where tourism is developed.