Tourists Safety In Question Following A Difficult Year of Murders Of Mostly Women Travelers In Costa Rica. Country’s Image And Economy Threatened. President Carlos Alvarado Pledges To Protect Travelers.
by Heather Cassell
Costa Rica has been the tourism darling for decades but all that is now in jeopardy following a particularly bad year of tourists being killed.
“There has already been damage done to the country’s image,” Security Minister Michael Soto expressed his awareness and concern about the seriousness of the situation to Bloomberg.
Tourism Minister Maria Amalia Revelo agreed.
“We are very worried, the situation we are witnessing is critical,” Maria said in August following the three reported crimes against the women travelers, reported Bloomberg.
“We’d all like more police, but we all know the government’s fiscal situation.”
President Carlos Alvarado didn’t seem concerned about Costa Rica’s fiscal situation with the threat facing tourism to the country.
Tourism is one of Costa Rica’s top three industries.
The country relies heavily upon visitors as its main source of income to supplement a ballooning spending gap, reported Bloomberg. Serious fiscal troubles aren’t going to help the country, particularly it’s tourism industry as security is being threatened.
Carlos’ administration understands that and despite the country’s financial troubles, his government pledge to spend $4 million of Costa Rica Tourism Institute to protect travelers to the country. The money will be used to increase police presence in tourist areas, conduct more “mega-operations” to catch suspects in crimes against tourists and to launch an app for tourists to download on their mobile phones that will contain crime data in areas they plan to visit, reported Bloomberg.
“These incidents infuriate us,” President Carlos Alvarado said. He promised “intense work” to reverse the situation.
Costa Rica has become the leader in sustainable and eco-tourism boasting 12 of the world’s ecosystems that thousands of species call home and the country’s tranquil beaches on travel advertisements and brochures.
(Photo: Courtesy of Wendel N. Cindy / AdobeStock)
Unlike other Central American countries, Costa Rica has enjoyed a relatively peaceful existence. It did away with it’s military in 1948. The country gained a reputation for being a safe destination for travelers seeking to revel in the country’s biodiversity over the more than 70 years.
In 2017, 2.9 million tourists visited Costa Rica. It was up from 2016, where 2.6 million tourists visited Costa Rica contributing $3.4 billion to the country’s Gross Domestic Product, according to the Costa Rica Tourism Board. That number jumped to. Roughly half of the travelers were from the United States and Canada.
Costa Rica appeared to be on an upward trajectory, up by 7 percent, with visitors flocking to the country due to strong promotion of the country and better flights, according to Statistics Tourism in Costa Rica. It appeared that the country was on track to meet its goal to reach 3.9 arrivals by 2021, reported Q Costa Rica.
That was until tourism growth began to slow in 2017 due to the decline in the number of American visitors for the first time since 2009, reported Bloomberg.
The decline happened in the same year that Costa Rica announced the launch of a new campaign, “Essential Costa Rica. My Choice, Naturally,” with the United Nations World Tourism Organization targeted at American travelers as well as Canadian, English, French, and Mexican travelers.
The Problem
That’s all been seriously shaken as a wave of murders of tourists and a more than a month-long national strike that turned violent and disrupted traveler’s vacations during the past year changes travelers’ perceptions about Costa Rica.
Alarm bells have been ringing concerning travelers’ safety in Costa Rica long before Carla Stefaniak’s body was found 1,000 feet from her Airbnb last month.
August was the worst month for Costa Rica. Two women visitors were killed within two days of each other and another woman reported a being raped a week later.
In August, Maria Trinidad Mathus Tenorio, a 25-year-old woman from Mexico, was attacked on the beach by two men at El Carmen beach in Santa Teresa on the Pacific side of Costa Rica. Her unidentified friend from England ran to get help from the hotel. Maria’s body was later found on a beach after she was allegedly drowned, reported The Costa Rica Star. Both suspects were arrested and identified by Maria’s friend soon after the incident.
Locals held a march and vigil in honor of Maria, a singer who was only into the first week of her solo adventure around the world.
In the same two-day period on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica, Arcanza Gutierrez Lopez, a 30-year-old woman from Spain was found with strangle marks around her neck on the outskirts of the hotel area near Tortuguero National Park. She was on a dream vacation with her husband.
An unidentified German woman was also reportedly a victim of sexual assault in the same area around the same time in August, reported The Costa Rica Star.
The same month, a 19-year-old Canadian woman who was raped, kidnapped, and robbed reported the incident that happened in July, reported the Star. The suspect was arrested and confessed to the crime.
The assaults on women and murders only added to travelers’ concerns as the Star asked, “Is Costa Rica Becoming Too Dangerous for Female Tourists?”. The string of murders of mostly women follow accidents involving an American tour guide and a tourist around the beginning of the year.
In January, 33-year-old American adventure tour guide Amanda Geissler’s plane crashed into a Costa Rica mountain shortly after takeoff.
A month before that, New York philanthropist Rohina Bhandari, 49, was killed by a shark while scuba diving in Costa Rica.
These are just the women travelers. In October 2018, Costa Rican authorities declared that Tom Cook, 62, from Vermont was murdered in Jaco, a surf town, after he was missing for two months, reported the New York Post.
In total, a record 603 people were killed in Costa Rica in 2017, according to authorities. They anticipate that the figures for 2018 will be even higher when they are released, reported Bloomberg.
The number of tourists being murdered in Costa Rica has steadily been rising since 2012, according to authorities.
“Crime is increasing in Costa Rica and US citizens are frequent victims,” according to the US embassy website. “US citizens are encouraged to exercise a high level of caution and vigilance due to increasing levels of violent crime.”
The embassy advised visitors to be extra cautious in popular tourist destinations: Liberia, San Rafael, and San Jose.
Book your next vacation with Girls That Roam Travel. Contact Heather Cassell at Girls That Roam Travel at 415-517-7239 or at .
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