Costa Rica reopens to key tourism market as it welcomes Mexican visitors

Costa Rica will open its doors to the arrival of tourists from Mexico, after considering a drop in reported Covid-19 cases in that nation, the Costa Rican government announced.

Mexico is the country that sends the third-most visitors to Costa Rica, behind only the United States and Canada.

Mexican tourists will be able to enter the Central American country with a negative Covid-19 test as of October 1, as will tourists from Jamaica and the U.S. states of California and Ohio, said Costa Rican Tourism Minister Gustavo Segura .

“The provision is due to the opening in international tourism, gradual, sustained and with controlled risk that we have been managing to reactivate the country’s economy and boost the tourism sector,” Segura said at a press conference.

He stressed that through last year, Mexico contributed more than 90,000 tourists annually.

Costa Rica, which closed its borders to the entry of foreigners in March due to the coronavirus, began opening to foreign tourism on August 1, with the arrival of visitors from the European Union, the United Kingdom and Canada.

Later, some Asian countries, Australia, New Zealand and Uruguay were added. Starting in September, U.S. citizens began arriving from some states.

With the opening to California and Ohio as of October 1, residents of 20 US states and the District of Columbia will be enabled to visit Costa Rica.

Segura admitted that the opening to Europe has given “discreet results”, with only four weekly flights that themselves aren’t always full, so the Costa Rican tourism sector hopes to recover with a greater arrival of North Americans.

“The tourism sector continues in a delicate situation,” Segura said.

Before the pandemic, Costa Rica received more than 3 million foreign tourists annually, and the sector contributed to a significant portion of the country’s jobs and GDP.