Costa Rica's Arenal/Planeta.com

Volcanoes Draw Tourists in Costa Rica
by Susan Fry

May 1997

The brochure claimed we'd be able to sit on the front porch of the Arenal Volcano Observatory Lodge and watch red-hot lava stream down the side of the volcano. But now, staring at the sweep of a volcano shoulder abruptly truncated by white mist, I realize there's a good reason many rainforests in Costa Rica are dubbed "cloud forests."

About 4:00 a.m., the rumbling wakes me up. At first I think it's thunder - I've never heard a volcano before. Lying in the dark, I remember that the Lodge, built to let the Smithsonian Institution study the volcano up close, is in fact the hotel nearest the volcano. I also remember that Arenal erupted for real in 1968, destroying two villages.

Although the 2 km separating me from Arenal seemed safe in daylight, right now I don't feel quite so confident.

The next morning the top of Arenal is still shrouded in mist. It looks just like any ordinary mountain. Other hotel guests joke that the volcano is actually an elaborate hoax formulated to drive tourists to the region. If so, it's working. Arenal, and the other volcanoes studding the mountainous spine of Costa Rica, are some of the most popular tourist destinations in the country. The Arenal Lodge is full, as are other hotels in the region. Two years ago, packed hotels would have been a common sight all over Costa Rica. But now this region is one of the lucky ones. Tourism has dropped dramatically.

"We're at half the capacity we were this time two years ago," the owner of the Tilawa hotel tells me. "I've had to let a lot of my staff go." Tilawa, a funky hotel modeled on the Cretan palace of Knossos, is a popular stop-off point for tourists headed to the beaches.

Why has tourism decreased? Minister of Tourism Carlos Roesch, in an interview with Costa Rica's La Nacion, blames prices. He admits that many Costa Ricans deliberately inflate prices to make the most from the tourist trade. Costa Rica is not an inexpensive place to travel for tourists - a good hotel can run $50 to $100/night, and restaurant dinners can average $6/person. According to a guide at Arenal Observatory Lodge, many tourists find trips to Mexico and Cuba much less expensive.

The areas hardest hit by the slump are the beaches on either side of the mountain ridges. Expecting the tourist boom of the early 1990's to continue indefinitely, entrepreneurs built hundreds of hotels and lavish resorts to line Costa Rican beaches such as Tamarindo. The market is over-saturated, and most of these hotels are nearly empty this year. Many are only half-finished.

"Our beaches are wonderful," says a guide at the Arenal Lodge. "But you can go to the beach in many places in the world. It's harder to find volcanoes, and tourists want something unique. So the volcanic regions are suffering less."

At first, we assumed hotels were deserted due to the time of year - July, a rainy month, is usually the low season for foreign tourists. But July is also the month in which most Costa Ricans (Ticos) holiday within their country.

"So much of Costa Rica's economy depends on tourism," says a guide at the Los Angeles Cloud Forest. "When the foreign tourists don't come, Costa Ricans lose their jobs and can't afford to even travel in Costa Rica. So the tourist trade suffers even more. It's a vicious circle."

In past years, tourism has been the career of choice for many Ticos. Although many of the larger hotels are foreign owned, in good years they can provide a stable income for many Costa Rican staff members. Many smaller hotels are owned and run by Ticos. In the town of La Fortuna, near Arenal, for example, the tourist industry grew from the ground up. Ticos first rented out rooms in their houses to tourists, then added small cabinas to their houses, then built small hotels.

The money from tourism has been good for smaller communities, says an employee of the Aerial Tram outside San Jose, a ride that takes tourists up into the rainforest canopy. She's from the small town of Guapiles, which offers few alternatives to farm labor. "You can earn more in the tourist industry than you can in agriculture, and sometimes your employer will pay for education, such as learning English or biology."

I ask the guide at Arenal if anything could stop the tourists from coming to see his volcano. "More clouds like this. Or if the volcano stops erupting," he grins. Then he pauses. "Or really begins."

Susan Fry is a free-lance writer living in San Francisco. She can be reached via email: SHFry@aol.com.

Volcanoes Draw Tourists in Costa Rica by Susan Fry

Volcanoes Draw Tourists in Costa Rica
by Susan Fry