Essential News

San José, Costa Rica, July 7th, 2017. Costa Rica continues to make steady progress, earning a recognition position among investors, buyers and tourists in new markets.

The good perception of the country brand, essential Costa Rica, positions it over competitors in the region, such as: Colombia, Mexico, Dominican Republic and Panama. In the last three years COSTA RICA has collaborated in the identification of investment and trade sectors, and continues to strengthen its legacy as a natural destination.

Likewise, the value of the Costa Rica brand moved up twelve positions in tourism and five in commerce and investment, in the world’s Country Brand Ranking 2017-2018, being the ninth in the continent and making it the brand with the greatest growth throughout America. These findings come from a recent study by Bloom Consulting and Place Matters, both international consulting firms, expert in the evaluation of country positioning in foreign markets.

Gonzalo Vilar, Bloom Consulting Strategy Director, stated that "according to the data analyzed in the dimensions of tourism, investment and trade, the Costa Rican country brand is well established, enjoys an excellent reputation worldwide, a better perception than the competitors analyzed in the area and a feeling of positivism towards it. "

"The Costa Rican brand is highly attractive for both tourism and business, when compared to the Latin American competitors included in the study. In addition, it is not only a good reputation, but the perception about the country shows a trend of sustained improvement in the last 36 months. Likewise, the country enjoys an extremely positive brand value that gives credence to the positioning work done, "added the expert.

According to Pedro Beirute Prada, President of the Inter-Agency Country Brand Committee and General Manager of the Foreign Trade Promoter (PROCOMER), "this measurement made by international experts in country brands confirms that the strategy of integrating tourism, trade and investment is the right one for the international positioning of Costa Rica ".

The consultants used information from nearly 63 million online searches over the past three years in 11 different languages with 86,500 keywords. The data were accessed using the Bloom Consulting tool called Digital Demand.

The experts also conducted around 900 interviews with journalists, press agencies, tourism professionals, international recruiters, international organizations, leaders of commercial channels, representatives of multinational companies in their headquarters. As well as investors and travelers from the United States, England, Spain, Canada, France, Switzerland, Holland, Germany and Panama in key sectors such as fresh and packaged foods, life sciences, universities, insurance, pharmaceuticals, and personal care.

According to the analyzed mega data of the web searches, Costa Rica continues to enjoy a prominent position as a natural destination, however, it is gaining visibility as a partner to do business in the Americas.

In the period between April 2016 and March 2017, the country was searched almost 7 million times by travelers in search of a tourist destination, placing it as the third most interesting destination in America. For its part, about 350,000 people analyzed Costa Rica as a possible destination to buy products or invest. This figure positions the country as No.10 in all America, including competing states from the United States.

Proactive searches for the three sectors registered positive growth rates: 23% for tourism, 19% for investment and 15% for Costa Rican export products. "When compared to its competitors there’s clear evidence that the country is achieving sustainable growth in the interest of its target audiences in these sectors, some of them located in specific niches," added Vilar.

Data analysis indicates that there is a growing interest from markets such as Canada, Mexico, United Kingdom, Spain, Germany and France for Costa Rica as a destination for investment, tourism and exports, coinciding with the efforts of market diversification undertaken by COMEX, PROCOMER, CINDE and ICT.

essential COSTA RICA gains ground

When measuring the performance of essential COSTA RICA with the target audiences addressed by the researchers, a significant advance in the recognition of the logo in international markets is evident. 53% of respondents recognized the essential COSTA RICA logo as the country's representative, and considered the concept of "essential" to add reasonable value for both tourism and business.

For the consultants, the strategy of presenting Costa Rica through essential COSTA RICA as a multisectoral country and not only as a tourist destination, has been giving important initial steps in the global perception.

The research carried out is framed within the actions of monitoring and administration of the essential COSTA RICA country brand, responsibility of the Country Brand Committee. This committee is comprised by decree by The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Trade, the Costa Rican Institute of Tourism (ICT), PROCOMER and the Costa Rican Investment Promotion Agency (CINDE).

To date 287 companies are licensed with the use of essential COSTA RICA and the organizations of the Committee are developing two international campaigns designed for the target audiences in digital media and television.

For more media information
Carlos Morales
CINDE
cmorales@cinde.org