AIR BERLIN ARRIVES IN COSTA RICA FOR THE FIRST TIME

• Germany is the second leading European country to generate foreign exchange in Costa Rica.
• Germans stay in the country for about 18 nights and their average daily spending in 2005-2010 was about $72 per person

For the first time, Daniel Oduber Airport in Liberia received an Air Berlin flight on November 12. The airline brought German tourists interested in the natural and cultural wealth of Guanacaste.

Air Berlin is the second largest German airline. This connection to Europe will bring together our country to the Old Continent and to the second largest European market to visit Costa Rica, just after Spain.

Allan Flores, Minister of Tourism, explained that this flight is the best example of the hard work done in regards to promotion and marketing, in which a crucial component is to attract airlines.

 From this perspective, the strategic alliances resulting from the participation in international fairs in priority markets, such as ITB Berlin in March, have been highly important.The airline will use an Airbus A330-200 with a capacity for 303 passengers.

It will travel every other Saturday from Dusseldorf, Germany to Costa Rica, with a stopover in Cancun, Mexico."Today we celebrate that Costa Rica has become an attractive destination for renowned airlines such as Air Berlin, which has decided to include our country for the first time in its list of destinations for 2011-2012," said Flores.

In 2010, 44,539 Germans visited our country, of which 80% entered the country through air. In addition, six of ten tourists visited the country on the recommendation of friends and family; they prefer to travel in pairs and are inclined to engage in tourist activities involving high contact with nature and wildlife observation, tours to volcanoes, and hiking trips, among others.

About 15.2% of the foreign exchange generated in Costa Rica by Europe is from Germany, the European location ranked second in giving our country more foreign exchange.

Air Berlin has one of the newest fleets in Europe (150 aircrafts, five years old in average). The airline flies to 163 destinations in 39 countries and in 2010 alone, it transferred 33.6 million passengers.