Tico companies to promote Costa Rica at travel fair in Brazil

A group of 13 Costa Rican companies will participate in the first edition of the World Travel Market Latin America 2013 (WTM), to be held April 23-25 in São Paulo, Brazil.

The Costa Rican Tourism Board (ICT) will accompany the companies to increase marketing efforts in South America.

According to Tourism Minister Allan Flores, Costa Rica’s participation in the fair “is part of government strategies to capture relevant markets.”

One of ICT’s main goals is “to schedule appointments with Brazilian wholesale market representatives for negotiating cooperative campaigns, answer questions from visitors and members of the press and to measure trends occurring in the market,”the minister said.

WTM Latin America will feature more than 1,150 exhibitors including tour operators, tourism agencies, public institutions, airlines and wholesalers – mainly from Brazil, Latin America and the United States.

Brazilian arrivals to Costa Rica have remained constant in recent years. According to the ICT, of 15,071 Brazilians who visited Costa Rica in 2012, 69 percent were vacationers, 21 percent came for business, 6 percent visited relatives and 4 percent indicated other reasons.