The management of the Maritime Terrestrial Zone (ZMT), gentrification, and the tourism model the province should pursue were recurring themes in conversations with nine candidates for the Guanacaste legislature on the Guanacaste Vota podcast, produced by La Voz.
The positions on Guanacaste’s tourism model vary among the candidates: some propose diversifying the model beyond sun and beach, others promote hotel investment focused on luxury tourism, while some admit to not having a defined position and say they need to study these issues more thoroughly.
Coalición Agenda Ciudadana (CAC) – Martín Reyes: Business owners should pay the true price of paradise
For the CAC candidate, the tourism sector faces two challenges: the employability of local people and the Costa Rican population’s access to and enjoyment of public beach areas.
Reyes believes that a lack of English proficiency is one of the main reasons why tourism companies and hotels hire people from outside the communities. “We want to use the ICT’s surplus to create an intensive English program (…) Without English, we are not going to get ahead,” he believes.
Reyes considers it necessary to reform the ZMT law because it is “very old,” but he is emphatic that the changes must be aimed at “benefiting Costa Ricans,” according to the candidate.
“I am sure that if that happens in a concession, what will happen here is that people will not be able to enjoy the ZMT. In other words, they will be told: you cannot be here. That’s very delicate. If that’s done (…) the entrepreneur should pay what it’s worth. That fee should really be expensive. The thing is, if the fee is expensive, the products are expensive and everything is expensive, but we have to find a balance. But that’s very delicate. We have to look at it very carefully,” says Reyes.
Hear more in the conversation with Martín Reyes on YouTube or Spotify.
Frente Amplio (FA) – Christian Golcher: the Papagayo Tourist Pole has run its course
The FA candidate opposes the bills currently before the assembly that seek to allow commercial use of the public area of the ZMT. “We have prominent political figures who are saying that the crown jewel is the opening up of the concession of the maritime-terrestrial zone, and we in the Frente Amplio perceive this as a way to exclude (…) We oppose the model of privatization of the maritime-terrestrial zone,” says Golcher.
Golcher was also emphatic about reforming the Papagayo Tourist Pole. “Tourism development on the Papagayo Peninsula has arrived and actually needs to be integrated more and better into the development of the province.”
For the candidate, it is necessary to rethink the amounts that the project pays for the concessions it uses and to monitor the environmental impacts it generates.
“The problem is that we have a kind of enclave in the Papagayo Tourist Pole where the only law is that developed by the Costa Rican Tourism Institute, which does not have the real powers to fully review everything that our legislation establishes in terms of environmental conservation and protection, as well as social protection.”
Hear more in the conversation with Christian Golcher on YouTube or Spotify.
Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN) – Ronald Campos: for families to remain within the ZMT
A province where $2 million mansions stand side by side with humble houses that are constantly flooded: this is Guanacaste on the coast, as described by PLN candidate Ronald Campos.
“We are in a rural province experiencing a tourism boom (…) It is a province buoyed by an influx of resources and funds, but at the same time, it is home to one of the most vulnerable populations and even very high levels of poverty, such as in Nosara,” says the Liberation Party candidate.
Although Campos does not make specific proposals on tourism, he links this inequality to the deterioration of infrastructure, health services, education, and security in the province.
In addition, the Green Party candidate also supported a reform of the ZMT law, but focused on the permanence of the families who have historically lived there and who may be evicted. “There are people who were born there, who have lived there all their lives, and it cannot be that now they are simply deprived of that right,” he says.
Listen to more of the conversation with Ronald Campos on YouTube or Spotify.
Partido Liberal Progresista (PLP) – Maritza Salazar: luxury tourism that enjoys the Guanacaste sky
For the PLP candidate, luxury tourism is the province’s greatest ally. Her two main proposals for the sector are astrological tourism and good sleep tourism.
As she explains, astrological tourism seeks to take advantage of Guanacaste’s clear skies and low light pollution in several rural and coastal areas to attract visitors interested in stargazing.
“The Four Seasons had a dinner called ‘dinner with the planets’. Something like that. It was an exquisite outdoor dinner (…) And with people who had been trained to use telescopes and who knew about astronomy. These were dinners that sold out, and each dinner was worth I don’t know how many thousands of dollars,” she says.
As for sleep tourism, the candidate presented it as an offering focused on deep rest and well-being. “That’s something we sometimes don’t value, and we have it throughout the Nosara area. That’s what they sell as the famous wellness. We have to exploit that,” she adds.
Listen to more of the conversation with Maritza Salazar on YouTube or Spotify.
Partido Nueva Generación (PNG) – Alonso Alán: poverty leads to gentrification
“Our tourism has grown in a disorderly manner,” says the PNG candidate, describing the real estate boom on the province’s coastline and its effects on local communities.
For Alán, the lack of territorial order and poverty are the causes that exacerbate inequality and encourage gentrification. “We cannot think that regulatory plans should be at the service of tourism projects; they must also be at the service of fishermen, residents, and the people who have lived there so that they are not excluded from these planning processes,” he says.
One of Alán’s biggest concerns regarding the ZMT is not tourism investment, but the permanence of the local families who live there, mainly in the areas surrounding mangroves and rivers.
“All the municipalities allowed land to be registered, allowed entire towns to be built (near mangroves and rivers) (…) and now they are telling us that those deeds have to be annulled, affecting mostly people with limited resources,” he criticizes.
Listen to more of the conversation with Alonso Alán on YouTube or Spotify.
Nueva República (NR) – Alex Soto: promoting “the goose that lays the golden eggs”
Incentives to attract more hotels and real estate companies. This sums up the Nueva República candidate’s vision of the path the province should follow.
“We believe that policies are needed to create incentives for more companies to come and work here (…) The hotel sector, for example, generates a lot of employment here in the province and obviously goes some way toward solving the problem of unemployment that we have,” he said, without specifying what specific incentives he would promote in the Legislative Assembly.
Despite the hotel development he is promoting, Soto is not convinced about proposing a reform of the ZMT. “I think it would be hasty to give an answer without having taken a comprehensive approach to the issue and fully understanding the problem,” he says, emphasizing that the law is necessary to protect the public good.
“If that regulation did not exist, there would be a lot of abuse, there would be people taking over the public good, which is everyone’s beaches,” says the candidate.
Listen to more of the conversation with Alex Soto on YouTube or Spotify.
Partido Pueblo Soberano (PPSO) – Nayuribe Guadamuz: Neither one nor the other; we must analyze
The PPSO candidate believes that gentrification, the ZMT, and the province’s tourism model must be studied in detail before issuing an opinion. “We must conduct a very thorough analysis,” she says.
Guadamuz points out that it is difficult for the Guanacaste population to access the high-level positions offered by the tourism sector. For her, education is the key tool to reverse this situation.
“Prepare (young people) so that they don’t end up as maids or gardeners (…) Competition in Guanacaste is really strong, very strong, and we need to prepare our people, and I would bet precisely on a quality bilingual education.”
In addition, the candidate believes that education should not be focused solely on the tourism sector. “We are not just a tourism province; we also have to look beyond that, seek out and motivate our young people in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), in robotics and technology,” she says.
Listen to more of the conversation with Nayuribe Guadamuz on YouTube or Spotify.
Partido Unidad Social Cristiana (PUSC) – Bismarck Villegas: committed to a “more humane” gentrification
Is there such a thing as benevolent gentrification? That is the PUSC candidate’s view on the displacement of local communities. For him, inequality can also be combated through culture.
“We must seek spaces for coexistence to avoid sociocultural segregation. Art is a tool for social and economic transformation,” he says, pointing out that Guanacaste’s cultural identity can be key to integrating communities and generating opportunities.
Villegas believes that the province should diversify its tourism offerings and commit to rural community tourism, ecological tourism, and scientific tourism, taking advantage of Guanacaste’s unique biodiversity and ecosystems.
“We cannot continue to depend on sun and beach tourism, seasonal tourism, but rather we have to move towards rural community tourism, which is a type of tourism that has no season, no winter or summer season (…) The intersectoral effort (to boost community tourism) has not been made. It is always mentioned, but there is no plan, no roadmap,” said Bismarck.
As for the ZMT, the candidate believes that current legislation does not require reform. “The law is clear, and its main objective is to protect our citizens’ access to beaches. My position on this is really inflexible.”
Listen to more of the conversation with Bismarck Villegas on YouTube or Spotify.
Unidos Podemos (UP) – José Luis Chavarría: beyond sun and sand
In a debate among candidates for Guanacaste, Celia Pastrana, the Unidos Podemos party’s candidate for first place in Guanacaste, stated that the province should not follow in the footsteps of Tulum, Mexico.
Although the candidate for second place, Chavarría, said he was unaware of Celia’s position, he commented that the party’s vision is to focus on diversifying the tourism offer.
“The (government) plan also indicates that we must seek other tourist activities, not just beach tourism, mountain tourism, and hotels, but also rural community tourism, wellness tourism, health tourism, sports tourism, and gastronomic tourism. These would be the specific activities to increase the tourism offer,” she said.
For Chavarría, expanding the types of tourism would attract more visitors throughout the year and generate greater economic opportunities for Guanacaste communities.
Listen to more of the conversation with José Luis Chavarría on YouTube or Spotify.
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