- 40% of hotel owners improved their infrastructure and services
- 6,400 business owners trained
- Improvements in access to online reservation systems
- Tourism management seminars for Small Hotel Owners will be initiated
Around 300 small hotel businesses in Central America, of which, more than 50% are from Costa Rica, have improved their competitive edge in tourism thanks to the Small Hotel Owners program which was developed in our country in 2003 and extends throughout the region.
This program, which was developed under the auspices of the Organization of American States (OAS) and governments of the region, officially completed its first support phase this year by delivering a small and medium hotel establishment guide to Costa Rica and the small and medium hotel sector with the aim to increase the sector’s quality. This act was made official by the Costa Rica Tourism Institute (ICT) and was firmly supported by the hotel sector.
According to the Tourism Minister, Carlos Ricardo Benavides, this initiative has made way for improvements in the types of services that these businesses offer, increasing their quality and competitiveness in the market, and offering better types of products, like special packages and attractive extras to the tourist.
It is a successful project that, in Costa Rica’s case, improves the competitiveness and diversification of services that these small hotel owners offer their clientele. These are businesses that, before, didn’t offer cable services, air conditioning, quality food services, or an adequate infrastructure, but now, they are making changes to improve this situation. There are cases where hotel owners used to work in livestock or trading and now they’ve decided to take a new path and become sound tourist business proprietors,” said Benavides.
He added that the tourist industry in Costa Rica is made up, in large part, of small and medium businesses with an average of 20 rooms, which shows the importance that this sector has in the development of this industry and the surrounding communities. The 182 Costa Rican businesses that participated in the program are located in Manuel Antonio, the Caribbean, Golfito, La Fortuna, the Central Valley, San Jose and Sarapiquí.
This initiative based its course of action on areas like network support groups, training and technical assistance, marketing and promotion as well as information services, consulting and advising. As a result, the primary objectives attained involve the creation of local Small Hotel associations (per country) as well as a Central American Federation which will provide follow-up to ideas implemented in the program.
A needs analysis was also created for Central American small business tourism in order to resolve such needs. Additionally, a web page was set up to facilitate the marketing of these establishments and to implement online reservation systems as well as postings of specials on the Internet, which raised the number of reservations, marketing potential and sales.
With respect to training, courses were offered on identifying potential clients, creating marketing plans, putting multi-destination travel packages together, sustainability, defining tourist products, improving returns, and sales. An important contribution has been the Ongoing Competitiveness and Quality Improvement program (Actualización Permanente de Competitividad y Calidad) in association with the World Tourism Organization (WTO). In total, 6,400 people participated in these courses, in person and electronically.
Other contributions of the Small Hotel program were defining a model, a successful regional work structure, and quality standardization of tourist offers, which will allow multi-destination packages to be formed throughout the region. In fact, 40% of hotel owners that participated in the program were able to make changes in services and infrastructure of their establishments.
Upon completion of the first phase of the program, the next steps will be carried out through local small hotel networks in each country with the support of the Central American Small Hotel Federation. In Costa Rica’s case, these steps will be carried out through the Local Small Hotel Network, an organization that depends on ICT's support.
The upcoming projects will involve the introduction of a Small Hotel Tourism Management seminar, which already has the backing of the WTO, the OAS, and University of Quilmes in Argentina. The only aspect to be decided is the country where the seminar will be given.
Additionally in Costa Rica, the Local Small Hotel Network is preparing the implementation of a multi-destination program with various organizations within the tourist sector. It is an initiative that is hoped to be implemented at a regional level after measuring the results in our own country. This association also signed a letter of understanding that seeks to implement a cooperation, marketing, and technical agreement with the ICT to continue strengthening the process for the small and medium hotel owner.
