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The Costa Rican Chamber of Tourism went straight to the tourism industry to survey the tourism behavior for the 2008 first semester.

With the purpose of monitoring important changes within the tourism industry, the Chamber has collected information regarding the number of tourists which have entered the country and used any related services.

There is a concern regarding outside variables that may directly influence tourism arrival to Costa Rica such as rising gas prices around the world as well as the homeowner crisis in the US.

However, the tourism arrival for this year’s first semester has increased from 2007.  A total of 1,030,000 tourists have visited Costa Rica during 2008’s first semester, this is a total of 89,178 more tourists than in 2007.

This data represents arrivals via air travel and was obtained from Costa Rica’s two main international airports: Juan Santamaria International Airport in San Jose and the Daniel Oduber International Airport in Guanacaste.

While San Jose received 13.1% more tourists than 2007’s first semester, Guanacaste is showing a rapid growth as well by having received 9.16% more visitors than in 2007.

The Costa Rican Chamber of Tourism also obtained data from approximately 50 of its members in which 40% mention that 2008’s first semester has seen an increase in sales, 46% mentioned that sales have been even to those in 2007 and only a 14% reported a decrease in sales compared to last year.

This information also seeks to help the tourism industry in making pertinent changes in order to maintain an optimal service and contribution to the country’s industry.