Skift Global Forum Preview: How Costa Rica Is Staying Ahead of the Pack on Sustainability

Costa Rica has long been a destination associated with ecotourism. Way back in 1997 — long before courting travelers with sustainability was a mainstream destination marketing tactic — the country established its Certificate of Sustainable Tourism program (CST) to encourage and assist the country's tourism providers in committing to sustainable business practices. The program is regarded as the first of its kind in a developing nation. Just over 20 years later, when the Minister María Amalia Revelo took over as the country's minister of tourism, she upped the ante further, providing stricter standards and guidelines concerning waste management as well as social and community interactions. Today 400 tourism companies in the country are certified on an opt-in basis, and the program has been the subject of academic study. Indeed, sustainable tourism has long been a point of pride for the Costa Rican government, which is in part why Revelo's job of heading the Costa Rican Tourism Board (ICT) is a more influential one than in many Latin American countries. Costa Rica has met the challenge of creating a sustainable tourism economy largely through an approach of public private partnerships. Though this model has its detractors, the countr