With the ever-changing changing travel restrictions and plane ticket costs, it’s obvious that the world of wanderlust has changed quite dramatically over the past couple of years. However, Costa Rica is doing its best to sell the image online more successfully than ever.
As times change and restrictions shift all over the world, we’ll be seeing new tricks to sell old locations that have been popular tourist attractions for some time now. However, this time they’ll be selling online in hopes to appeal to a new audience.
But how do they do that with the volatility of the world and travel at large? We’ll take a quick dive into some locations and how exactly eCommerce is doing its best to sell the country to a new breed of travelers. While there are bound to be some no-brainers on the list, we’re betting a few new up-and-coming tourist attractions will have travelers clamoring to see what we have to offer. Let’s start this trip off with a tourist attraction whose animal sets the pace of the action.
Tortuguero
Despite having more than just turtles on display in Tortuguero, they appear to hold a significant appeal for tourists who line up to see the beautiful plethora of loggerhead, hawksbill, leatherback, and green turtles. In particular, these creatures tend to pull in tourists from February to July, as it’s within this season that they lay their eggs.
On many sites, the biggest selling point is the turtle tours, many of which can now be booked online in advance of the trip. This will help alleviate any last-minute issues travelers might have with late planes as reservations can be moved to compensate for unforeseen flight issues.
While this shows an evolution from the Costa Rican eCommerce of yesteryear, it also clearly adheres to the rules many online retailers will have you follow regarding how to recognize the kind of product you have in order to successfully sell online. While Tortuguero and similar locations aren’t selling something physical like many retailers, they’re selling an experience that can still be branded to create recognition among interested parties.
Costa Rica Experts have realized the potential and now offer tours, hotels, and vacation packages for Tortuguero and many other locations using the famous turtles as an image to spark intrigue. The site itself uses a mountain covering the sun as its icon, which brings us to our next location.
However, the turtles aren’t the only reason tourists are coming out. A wide array of ecosystems ranging from beaches to mangrove forests to rainforests and lagoons makes for a fairly eclectic display of landscapes to marvel at and it seems marketing has been taking full advantage of that on their websites to show just how diverse of an experience Tortuguero really is. With such a vast array of options to explore, people could easily occupy a month visiting these exotic sites, and that’s exactly how travel is being sold to tourists.
Arenal
Topping many traveler’s lists, Arenal is home to a volcano of its namesake that once erupted 41 times in a day. While the volcano is now dormant, there’s still plenty of excitement in what is known as the adventure capital of Costa Rica. With the La Fortuna waterfall and plenty of hiking destinations around the area, there are plenty of ways to keep moving.
The famous Nomadic Matt ranks it #5 on his list of best places to visit in Costa Rica and, as of the time of writing, his last Arenal travel guide said a backpacker can live off of $48USD per day and a luxury stay will cost you about $245 a day. Costa Rican sites are promoting the volcano by offering an increased amount of trails and showing tons of pictures from every angle.
Other websites take this a step further by offering multiple hotel locations that mostly all have the famous volcano as a backdrop. Not a bad way to sell the image online while garnering interest.
Santa Teresa
If volcanoes and lagoons aren’t quite the traveler’s speed, it seems people are choosing the beach town of Santa Teresa to catch some waves and catch up on some rest. While not a small town by any means, coming in at nearly 45,000 people, Santa Teresa exudes a chill atmosphere that lends itself well to long stays. Tripadvisor.com lists endless white sand screenshots and claims it to be the perfect spot for anybody interested in surfing, snorkeling, and yoga/spa-going.
Travel sites are really playing into the beach bum allure with sites brimming to the URL with surfer shots and horse treks across the beach. Relaxation is the name of the game and what a game to play when people expect pure relaxation from their vacations. If having the market cornered on downtime is a strategy, sites that are advertising for Santa Clara are certainly using it.
Santa Teresa also boasts an impressive amount of dining options with the Satori terrace Sushi bar ranking third on tripadvisor.com and holding a perfect 5.0 rating after 238 reviews. While Santa Teresa might not be known for any one thing specifically, it appears to have just enough of everything paired with a laid-back to create the perfect rest stop in between adventures, and you can be sure anybody browsing the web for Costa Rican vacation spots will know that as well.
With news of more and more international travelers getting the okay to leave their country, we can expect to see a rise in tourism not only in the above-listed locations but plenty more across the country. Websites are cashing in on this with Costa Rican eCommerce making a majority of their sales before tourists even step a pinky toe in the sand. This should offer heightened revenue, but will certainly propose new challenges for the government as they decide what new tourism mandates they may or may not put into place.
Depending on that, we could see a sharp decline in tourism or an increase in new locations that haven’t been previously shown love in the past. Regardless, it seems the online portion of Costa Rican trip planning will continue to evolve with these changing times to increase online sales.
