Costa Rican Ecotourism: My Reflection of the Past 5 Weeks

Costa Rica Self Reflection

Over the past 5 weeks living and studying in Costa Rica, I have been given so many incredible opportunities that I have almost lost count. One of the aspects of my time abroad that has impacted me the most was my encountering of Costa Rican ecotourism. As an individual with great affection for business, many of the aspects surrounding ecotourism where either not of particular interest to me or completely foreign. However, throughout the past five weeks I have learned just how successfully private enterprise and sustainability truly can co exist with one another. After witnessing the dynamics of Isla Tortuga’s operations and reviewing INBioparque’s financial statements, I have started to become more aware of just how profitable the relationship between business and sustainability can be.

As a business student with an interest in the tourism industry, I have been able to learn and apply a completely new and unique aspect of tourism to my educational concentration. Learning about ecotourism has led me to the conclusion that even areas lacking as much biodiversity as Costa Rica possesses will still need to take a vested interest in their surrounding area to maintain a healthy ecosystem that further encourages individuals to visit and maintain a stable tourism industry in these locations. This aspect will be crucial for future business success because locations with severe environmental degradation will eventually no longer be able to support a well functioning tourism industry.

Overall I consider these past 5 weeks in Costa Rica and my experience with ecotourism as something that has left a significant impact on my future potential career endeavors. I truly have learned why sustainability is so important to the tourism industry and I truly posses the desire to apply these concepts to all of my future business endeavors with the intentions of still creating profit.

Costa Rican Ecotourism Certification

Synopsis

Above is an image associated with the Certification for Sustainability Tourism in Costa Rica (CST). The CST Program was developed by the Sustainability Programs Department of the Costa Rica Tourist Board and the Costa Rica National Accreditation Commission (www.turismo-sostenible.co.cr). At the national level, CST represents a new form of competition; a new way to differentiate our tourist industry with respect to our competitors, and one which enhances those tourism products which show a connotation of sustainability, opening new possibilities for marketing and international promotion (www.turismo-sostenible.co.cr). This type of sustainability certification is not anything unique to Costa Rica, but there is a significant amount of attention associated with this national certification process that has helped make Costa Rica one of the front runners of this initiative. It has taken on a life of its own as more and more of Costa Rica’s tourism purveyors have started to see the benefits of becoming certified. Over the course of a five week period, I have been introduced to multiple types of tourism purveyors and almost all of the ones we met with were either already certified or in the process of seeking certification. This significant influx of certification requests have unfortunately brought to surface many of CST’s logistical issues. The CST is relatively ill equipped to handle such inquiries because they are severely understaffed, utilize an ineffective evaluation procedure that appears to be too broad, or are having one of many other forms of operating inefficiencies according to many of Downtown San Jose’s tourism organizations.

Application

Although it appears that the CST is faced with a considerable amount of opportunities to improve its business model and to beef up its logistics, overall the CST appears to be fulfilling a desperately needed niche in Costa Rican tourism. I believe that the CST is needed even if it possesses significant flaws because without it, the potential exists to have no other organizations interested in creating a process for rewarding those individuals who have taken a vested interest in keeping Costa Rica’s natural biodiversity present in order to facilitate future generations of tourism.
One of the major flaws associated with the CST program is that it seems to assist those organizations in the promotion of “green washing” or those who abuse the concepts of "eco" and/or "sustainability” (www.turismo-sostenible.co.cr) even when CST claims that it is directly trying to “attack the problem generated by this unethical behavior.” Many individuals appear to qualify simply if they have created a recycling program, have switched out old light bulbs for newer LED bulbs, and have made a few other minimal efforts towards being sustainable. I personally believe that there should be more involved in being considered sustainable and those aforementioned actions should just be completed before an organization can even be considered for certification. After all, if CST certifies these organizations than it has effectively undermined its entire mission statement by supporting such minimalist organizations who are not truly interested in sustainability and who will continue exploiting the environment for their own benefit.