The Ella International Lesbian Festival Is Coming To Central America Next Year

by Heather Cassell

The Ella International Lesbian Festival will host Central America’s first-ever large lesbian event in Costa Rica in 2019.

It will be the first time the festival will be hosted outside of Europe, where it hosts its flagship event in Spain, reported The Costa Rica Star.

Spain’s premiere queer women’s event is celebrating its six edition this year. The art and culture, music, and sports event attract more than 2,000 women from around the world to Mallorca, one of Spain’s Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean.

Ella Costa Rica is set to happen May 8 – 22, 2019. Tickets to the event go on sale May 15, 2018.

“We organize this event to bring visibility to the lesbian and bisexual woman and offer a unique tourism [experience],” Kristin Hansen, CEO of Ella told The Costa Rica Star.

She added that lesbians want more than the just a party scene, which is prevalent in the gay male community. Women want a cultural connection and experience too. 

“We focus on the cultural exchange and getting to know the country we are in, the gastronomy, and [the] culture,” she said.

At Ella festivals event goers participate in motivational speeches, tours, gastronomy festivals, night parties, and beach activities.

Costa Rica presents the perfect destination for Ella followers. The country has long been an attractive destination for queer women with its three types of forests: rainforests, cloud forests, and tropical dry forests and 13 of the world’s types of climates, which gives way to the country’s incredible biodiversity. The country is progressive and safe even without a military, which was abolished in 1948. 

“Costa Rica is actually the safest Central / South American destination for LGBT travelers,” Ella organizers stated on the website. “We are very much looking forward to offer you an amazing trip to this wild and generous country, together with women from all over the world.” 

Costa Rican LGBTQI travel experts launched a new campaign to attract queer travelers to the Central American country in September 2017. The campaign was followed by a groundbreaking decision by the Inter-American Court for Human Rights and a heated presidential election that turned into a run-off between a progressive and a conservative candidate in April.

Costa Rica was the epicenter for the IACHR landmark decision legalizing same-sex marriage in Costa Rica in January. At the same time, the court ordered Latin America and Caribbean countries that haven’t legalized marriage equality to legally institutionalize same-sex marriage.

In April, following a contentious run-off election from February, progressive candidate Carlos Alvarado won in a landslide against his conservative opponent Fabricio Alvarado (no relation). 

“We want to show the country that LGBTI tourism has a real economic impact. This demographic of visitor spends three times more on average than the rest, and their priorities are wellness and the purchase of goods,” said Julio Cesar Calvo, president of the Costa Rica Diverse Chamber of Commerce, who is sponsoring the event.

Ella also produces events in Davos, Nepal, and Stockholm.

Book your next Ella event with Girls That Roam Travel. Contact Heather Cassell at Girls That Roam Travel at 415-517-7239 or at .

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