Not as funny as Jacob's

Today was action packed with adventures in the third floor meeting room of our hotel. The chair covers added an extra level of excitement I will likely never see duplicated. Our first guest speaker was Vanessa Gibson from CIND (Costa Rican Investment Promotion). She was a very enthusiastic lady and it was evident she was passionate about what she does. She spoke of how the non-profit  organization she works for aids countries in making foreign direct investments in Costa Rica. FDI is a huge part of the Costa Rican economy; over 5% of GDP. She related that her company aids companies both large and small such as Intel and Equifax with how to structure their investments in Costa Rica. She also went over the tax benefits for these companies, which were very impressive.

Our second guest spoke to us about marketing Costa Rica to the world. It was important to note (I know this because I wrote it down) that there are over 1 billion people worldwide employed in the tourism industry in one way or another. He brought us through the different marketing stages the country has gone through in the past century. It was interesting to learn that the country saw a sharp rise in the amount of tourist, then overbuilt hotel . This lead to them having to increase their marketing budget like 500% or something. He then spoke of the value propositions relayed in marketing the country to prospective tourists.

After lunch, we could barely hold our excitement getting back in the meeting room. The now sub-zero temperature only heightened our sense of adventure. The next speaker was Carlos with PROCOMER, which is the unofficial export agency of Costa Rica. Their job is basically setting up meetings for manufacturers, farmers, etc. with buyers in other countries. Not only to they connect the local business with potential buyers, they also attend trade shows where they set up a Costa Rica booth to present what they country has to offer. Their main goal is to get export contracts executed.

By this point in the afternoon, those of us not yet in the final stages in hypothermia were ready for a cat nap. However, we were diligent enough to learn about the "state of the region" from Alberto. Alberto works for an agency who compiles data for a randomly occurring report on the state of the region of Central America. He outlined the problems facing the region as of 2011, which seemingly only applied to half of the countries in the area (Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua). These challenges included : migration issues, rapid climate change, social exclusion, weak infrastructures, and political problems. These challenges were followed by potential solutions.

Fun stuff, right? Just got my first taste of the local rum. Very bueno.