Owners of vacation residences must pay their taxes │ Costa Developers

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Hoteliers indicate that there is a disparity between the application of taxes for hotels and vacation properties.

A new clarification in the records of the Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT) and the Ministry of Finance has intensified efforts to strengthen tax and patents that are paid on the residences holidays throughout the country.

"No we are trying to discourage the renters" said Herman Navarro, the Manager of tourism by the ICT.

the incomes from rentals properties in Costa Rica emerged on the scene after the crisis of 2008 by people who owned vacation properties and stopped coming, so it began to rent their properties or sold them to rental companies." This has led to reducing the demand of visitors to hotels.

The owners of the hotels think that competition is not what causes affectations, but that hotels should cancel taxes unlatched to vacation properties, ranging from sales tax, social security for its employees, payments to the Ministry of health and others not.

To start the implementation of this new law, the Ministry of finance in conjunction with the ICT conducted an investigation where it was found that there are several of these properties, for example in Jaco Beach about 23, Manuel Antonio a 36 and on the coast of the Caribbean a 38.

The ICT indicates that this represents unfair competition among hotels and rental properties, since every dollar earned by the hotels is to re invest about three or four times, while investing in 1 or 1.3 times for vacation properties.

This occurs because the vacation properties should not be so frequent in infrastructure, services and personnel investments. In some places, hotels pay an amount to those in charge of monitoring the coast, while the properties not canceled these amounts and receive the benefits.

This aims to of there is a balance of occupation between independent vacation properties and hotels which offer the same service to both.

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Costa Rica seeks to attract tourists in China

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The Chinese market has become one of the most important for Costa Rica in the recent times.

According to the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo (ICT) Costa Rica you would like five times the number of Chinese tourists to the country and work in efforts to achieve this goal over the next three years.

"Last year arrived in Costa Rica almost 10,000 Chinese tourists and we hope that in the medium term, at least in two or three years, we will reach 50,000. That takes work and investment, but we are prepared to do so,"he told Efe the Costa Rican Minister of tourism, Allan Flores.

According to the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) World Tourism grew by 4% in 2012 compared to the previous year, some 1,035 international tourists, and China and Russia remain markets with greater growth in tourists visiting other parts of the world, with 42% and 31% respectively.

According to the ICT data seeks to attract a number of 80 million Chinese who travel around the world and work in a successful strategy to achieve this goal.

"China is a very important market in what refers to international promotion strategies and in June we will be signing an air trade agreement with China," said flowers.

The agreement mentions the Minister manages to ratify a memorandum of understanding signed by the Governments of China as Costa Rica last August open opportunities with Chinese airlines to find flights and more direct flights to the Central American country and vice versa.

Part of the actions undertaken by Costa Rica to be known in the Chinese market is to participate for the first time in COTTM 2013 Beijing (China Outbound Travel & Tourism Market) which was held in Beijing last year.

"This fair participated in ten companies in Costa Rica, so we continue on the same line promote us strong and helping the private sector to make linkages with the Chinese tourism industry", said Flores.

It is expected that in future editions, the country participate again in this important fair.

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Costa Rican Tourism Institute Awards the national culinary offer

Between the year 2012 and what will 2013 5.Instituto Costa Rica Tourism Board (ICT) delivered 189 certified culinary excellences in the country.

Approximately 50 new businesses obtained certificates for culinary excellence; a highly tourist country which is also capable of meeting the needs of nationals and foreigners on the issue of food.

The new companies can be described with "forks" symbol that uses ICT to qualify for food companies; the major efforts being made include improvement in the standards of quality, the constant improvement of the gastronomic offer and the attendance of his service.

In this edition is certified to 45 companies with 3 forks (on a scale of 1-5) and 6 companies with 4 forks.

"The quality in gastronomic enterprises of the country makes it possible to differentiate and provide added value to offer a complete travel experience;" "for this reason, the ICT recognizes these new companies added to the certified year earlier completed a total of 189 establishments awarded, which without a doubt are of utmost importance within the tourist development of a destination", said Allan Flores, Tourism Minister.

Costa Rica is a country tourist and in this issue, highly competitive, with more than 2 million visitors per year, companies increasingly are closer to the ICT to find out how to become certified in culinary excellence.

In accordance with flowers after the first awards of the gastronomic establishments that occurred last year, many restaurants have approached the ICT in order to obtain the Declaration of tourist and information about the actions that can be taken to improve the category obtained.

"The list of winning companies is a representation of the great gastronomic variety that exists in the country, from family, up to high gourmet restaurants, with the same common denominator; providing options for all people and tastes, culinary diversity that today is being awarded by the ICT," said Hermes Navarro, Chief of tourism management.

Near the housing complex of Costa Developers, Costa Montaña, is located Los Sueños Resort and Marina where you can try different restaurants, Italian, American and Asian.

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Worldwide tourism will grow 4 percent this year to

Costa Rica continues to be a country very visited by tourists from around the world

For the first time globally, international tourist arrivals reached 1 billion (1,035 million) during the year 2012, according to an initial advance of the World Tourism Barometer, exhibited by the World Tourism Organization (WTO) in the framework of the international tourism fair (Fitur).

The World Tourism Organization expects for the 2013 world tourism growth between 3% and 4%, figures that match the predictions made by the Organization to obtain an average of annual growth of 3.8% in the decade from 2010 to 2020.

Data indicate that the fastest-growing tourist region was the Pacific and Asia, who won a 7% increase in arrivals of tourists compared to the 2011. Southeast Asia is the sub-region with better results (9% increases) due to regional tourism promotion policies.

The following region with greatest increase in tourism demand is Africa (6%) with a record of 52 millions of

data from the sub-region of Middle East international tourist arrivals were the only ones in the world that remained in red, however, improved by 2%, after having reached a growth of - 7% during 2011.

Meanwhile, Europe remains the most visited region of the world with 535 million arrivals of tourists (51% of the world). The Mainland had a total increase of 3%, where France and Italy recorded a decline in tourism (- 7% to - 2% correspondingly).

America recorded a total of 162 million tourists, an increase of 6 million (4%) compared with 2011. The most visited sub-region is Central America (4%), while South America dropped 9% that maintained the 2011 to a 4%

For Costa Rica, the data are encouraging, since according to the Costa Rican Institute of Tourism depending on the country received to September of 2012 around 1,800,000 tourists, being the number of the last registered quarter arrivals (513.513) higher from the same period in 2011 (485.067).

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Costa Rica seeks to attract more tourists from the Middle East.

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A new agreement will help boost the number of flights from the region.

Costa Rica and Qatar on Today signed the Central American country’s first open-skies agreement with a Middle Eastern country, aimed at boosting tourism from that region.

The Costa Rican Tourism Board (ICT) said in a press release that the agreement allows flights and airline operations between the two countries.

Tourism Minister Allan Flores said the agreement also will allow airlines to connect from other countries and transfer passengers between flights.

Air Transport Vice Minister Luis Araya said that in the last two years, Costa Rica has signed more open-skies agreements than in the past 100 years.

“These air transport links are vital in an economy in which tourism is our main economic development engine”.

Qatar, an emirate in the Middle East, has the highest gross domestic product per capita in the world ($102,700), and Costa Rica hopes to become a favorite holiday destination for its nationals.

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7.4% INCREASED OF TOURISTS TO COSTA RICA IN FIRST HALF OF 2012.

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In June, the Juan Santamaria International Airport reported 80% of arrivals by air.

From January to June over one million 285 thousand tourists entered Costa Rica for all ports. This number is 7.4 percent higher than in the same period last year.

This was announced by the Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT), based on data provided by the General Depatment of Immigration.

Only by air were reported 856 600 international arrivals, representing growth of 6.2%, in other words, 50 000 more people, most of them through the Juan Santamaria International Airport, although the latter was up only 1.3 percent. The majority of tourists arrive by air.

Tourists from the United States, Canada and Mexico top the list of entries by air. The second block in tourist importance is Europe and the third is South America.

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