The Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT, in Spanish) will finance the publicity campaigns of this year with $20 million gathered with the new tax in the plane tickets.
This tax is gathered since last July and it charges $15 extra for each foreigner who buys an airplane ticket to visit the country.
The money that the ICT received until December will be used in press and radio advertisements, and television commercials in the country and worldwide, informed Allan Flores, Ministry of Tourism of Costa Rica.
Most of the resources will be directed towards North America and Europe.but the ICT is also looking for tourists of high acquisition power in South and Central America. Besides, it will promote the local tourism and the attractiveness of the province of Limón.
This tax allowed us to avoid surpluses of the institution that will last an eternity”, added Flores.
Between 2006 and 2009, the Budget Authority of the Treasury authorize ICTto use the financial excesses to increase its budget for advertising. Thus, the entity passed an investment of $7 million in 2007 to invest $20 million in 2008. The daily La Nación consulted Flores which is the remnant surplus of the Institute, but he assured that the data hasn’t been released yet.
The additional $15 to the plane tickets is charged from the second term of last year, after the approval by the Tourism Industry Strengthen Law. This law gave an end to that 3% additional to the sales tax (13%) applied to the daily fee in lodging. With this tax, the ICT gets $1o million annually.
Costa Rica News 
