Owners and operators of hospitality and recreational businesses in Costa Rica are keeping a close eye on the growth of rural tourism across Costa Rica, also known as Agrotourism. In recent years, the Central Valley and adjacent rural areas have dominated this specialty tourism segment while Guanacaste has mostly catered to foreign visitors and Costa Rican families in search of luxury beach resorts. This, however, may soon change as Guanacaste expands its rural tourism offering.

A recent blog post by Yessenia Soto in the Rainforest Alliance’s Sustainable Trip travel website described an agrotourism endeavor in the Dota Valley:

As the Costa Rican tourism industry continues to take off, one of the biggest challenges rural communities face is finding a balance between the conservation of traditional ways of life and the need for economic growth. A visionary new agrotourism project in the Dota region of Costa Rica–developed by a group of community leaders and Vancouver Island University–helps rural communities establish financial security, protect the environment and conserve their traditions.

The project is centered on a multi-day trail, known informally as the Los Santos EcoTrail. Descending through the Dota region before arriving at the Pacific Ocean in the city of Quepos, the trail links a handful of small coffee farming communities and homestays. Currently, five Rainforest Alliance Certified™ farms are directly involved in the Los Santos EcoTrail project […]

The coffee tours described above are in line with the Community Rural Tourism initiatives of the Board of Tourism in Costa Rica (Spanish initials: ICT). These tours are also in line with a greater visions of sustainable tourism, which is described by ICT as:

[the] kind of tourism [that] allows the integration of natural resources, daily life in the rural communities and agropecuary activities in an attractive product for the national and international tourist market. Rural tourism is the perfect choice for the tourist that is interested in knowing and enjoying the life in the country side, such as: horse back riding, walks, agricultural activities, discovering alternative methods of production, fresh water fishing, village festivities, and fairs.

Hoteliers and tour operators in Guanacaste do not want to miss out on the rural tourism boom in Costa Rica and are thus complementing their offerings accordingly. For example, beach tourists staying at a hotel in Playas del Coco can take a trip to nearby towns where they can visit horse ranches, farms, fishing villages, and even special communities such as Playa Ostional, where sea turtle conservation is an important economic activity. The idea is to offer tourists choices beyond San Carlos, Turrialba and the Dota Valley.