On October 30, the fifth event of the 2018 Central America Innovation + Tourism Talk took place in the Tryp Sabana Hotel in San Jose, Costa Rica. Seventy-five companies with an equal number of representatives participated in the event, 81.33% of them being business owners. Costa Rica represented 11% of the total participants and 18% of the regional businesses.
In the case of Costa Rica, the Travel Agencies played a leading role representing 61% of the attending businesses, equivalent to 77% of the Travel Agencies that participated in Central America in these events. The Tour Operators were the second group, reaching a 21% representativeness, which corresponded to 13% out of the total of tour operator companies that participated in the region.
Digital transformation has laid the foundations for the rise of new business models
The 2018 Central America Innovation + Tourism Talk in Costa Rica was inaugurated by Sary Valverde, President of the National Chamber of Tourism of Costa Rica (CANATUR), who emphasized in her message to the business sector that it cannot be ignored that the digital transformation has given the emergence of new business models, transforming the tourism industry and imposing new forms of competition that force the sector, and companies in particular, to adapt to an environment in constant transformation. Entrepreneurs should not only be observers without the capacity to take action, running the risk of being left behind. On the contrary, entrepreneurs should have the ability to take advantage of them, she concluded .