The Virtual Guide...

CostaRicaVirtualGuide is made in Costa Rica by a team of professionals working in tourism, journalism and the audiovisual sector. The website is independent. Its mission is to form a meeting point for travellers and small and medium sized tourism organizations that offer their services on a sustainable manner.

This site helps tourists to make choices for sustainability during their vacations in Costa Rica. We are convinced that tourism can go hand in hand with nature conservation and development of local communities: CostaRicaVirtualGuide wants make a contribution to this goal.

Tourism has grown fast in Costa Rica during the last decennia. The local people are not always the winners, not to mention nature. Big resorts are being built along the coasts requiring scarce goods like water and land, large numbers of tourists visiting National Parks makes that the live of animals and plants are under pressure and large commercial enterprises dominate parts of the market. Most tourists visit just a few renowned ‘highlights’ pouring a lot of money in a relatively small part of the land. The ‘tourism-dollar’ is not always equally distributed.

There are many little hotels and other enterprises that have difficulty to reach a larger public. Sometimes they are in areas that simply still not are known, but worth a visit. Often these are family enterprises that with hart and soul try to develop their business in harmony with nature conservation and strengthening the local community. A visit to them gives the tourist the best Costa Rica has to offer: not only the overwhelming beauty of it nature but also the hospitality of its population.
CostaRicaVirtualGuide wants to be a platform for these enterprises to present themselves to a wider public.

CostaRicaVirtualGuide sustains itself by a (limited) quantity of sponsors who are given the opportunity to advertise on this site. These sponsors are carefully selected and share the vision of the CostaRicaVirtualGuide.
Small local businesses can advertise for free or against low costs.

CostaRicaVirtualGuide also sells multi-day tours. For this purpose it cooperates with travel agency Ecole Travel in San José and ACTUAR and COOPRENA (rural tourism).

Besides this, CostaRicaVirtualGuide works together with the organization PrakTica in the field of voluntary work and internships. Working in Costa Rica gives a unique opportunity to help with the development of local communities.