"Costa Rica's Million Dollar Gift of Happiness:” The First Winners of the Campaign arrived already to the Country

Photo courtesy of ICT

 • Facebook campaign caused madness in the U.S. and Canada  

The first couple of winners of the Gift of Happiness, the campaign that the Costa Rican Board of Tourism (ICT) launched in the U.S. and Canada, arrived on December 9 and was received with great anticipation by the tourism authorities at the Juan Santamaría Airport. 

"Costa Rica's Million Dollar Gift of Happiness" was launched on October 6 and, to date, 40 people have won through the page "Visit Costa Rica" on Facebook. The winners are a married couple from Ottawa, Canada, which joined Facebook and participated in the promotion after a family member told them about the contest. 

 The couple said they were very excited to visit the country and were quite pleased with the much warmer climate, if compared with their country’s weather. Dianne McGaire (56) and Scott McGaire (53) chose the package called “Authentic Happiness” from the five packages that this campaign includes: Romantic Happiness, Happiness Wildlife, Adventure Happiness, and Happiness Adrenaline. They were eager to learn more about the culture, interact with some communities, and enjoy the natural beauty. 

Based on the chosen package, they were expected to visit areas in the Central Valley, the Southern Caribbean, Manuel Antonio National Park, Braulio Carrillo National Park, and Gandoca Manzanillo Wildlife Refuge. 

This is not their first visit to Costa Rica. The couple had visited the country once before when they traveled on a cruise; however, they were here only for one day.

They were very pleased to be able to enjoy more time in Costa Rica. Diane and Scott have been married for over 20 years, have three children, and work in an insurance company in the financial area.

Their "gift of happiness" could not be less than a vacation to a place in nature, away from the hustle and bustle of the big city. "Well, we're really excited. I think it is a great opportunity.

I have talked to people who have been here before and they asked us where we were going. I told them that we were spending some time on the Caribbean side and some time on the Pacific side and they said: "Wow, you are going to do both in the same trip?”. Our relatives and friends are very excited as well.

They asked us to show them how to participate and we did," said Scott McGaire to ICT. According to the Minister of Tourism, Allan Flores, ICT and the private tourism sector have welcomed with great interest the arrival of the first winning team. T

hey can now have a great time in our country and enjoy its natural exuberance, the warmth of Costa Ricans, and the wide and select range of tourist services in the country. According to the Marketing Department of ICT, the first phase of this campaign will consist of promoting the packages for five months (from October this year to February 2012).

 "At this stage, the campaign will focus on social networks, because the top prospects in both countries are highly technical and thus will reach them effectively. The promotion is for cyber surfers to participate in raffles for trips to the country," reads the statement released by the ICT. The travel packages will be raffled through social networks like Facebook.

From Monday to Friday, the campaign will award one trip per day, until completing 80 trips, all for two people. We are talking about 160 tourists! The campaign is also looking through social networks and news for people who require a gift of happiness; people in their own right to earn the trip since they are linked to good causes and bring happiness to others or whose behavior may be related to Costa Rican values are taken into account as beneficiaries of the promotion.

This reward will reach other 95 people. This innovative advertising campaign, which enjoys strong support and admiration and has aroused great interest in America, capitalizes on the fact that Costa Rica has been called the happiest country in the world by the Happy Planet Index. This index includes various factors such as the welfare of nations and social indicators as life expectancy, ecological footprint, and others. 

According to ICT, in order to reinforce this distinction, , the company Gallup World Poll, in a publication in the prestigious Forbes magazine, said that Costa Rica is also the happiest country in America and has been placed sixth in the world after Denmark, Finland , Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands. 

Those who give a "like" to the page of this Costa Rican campaign and continue the promotion in Facebook / VisitCostaRica can watch videos featuring the different types of packages.  

"This campaign aims to generate discussions on Costa Rica, the exchange of experiences through social networking, recommendation of the destination and revisit," ICT’s statement quoted.   

"Costa Rica's Million Dollar Gift of Happiness" - Two months after its release • Fans on Facebook went from 8000 to over 88 thousand (as of December 26) and the number continues to increase.

• To date, 1328 followers have been reported on Twitter.

• Before the campaign, 54% of the fans were Ticos, 32% from U.S, 7% from Canada, and 7% were from elsewhere.

Thanks to the campaign, 77% are U.S. fans, being our main source of tourists market, 6% are Canadians, and 8% are from somewhere else.• To date, 40 winners have been reported on Facebook.

• Over 100 million people will be exposed to campaign messages through print media.

• It has a presence in more than a thousand Web sites like Trip Advisor, Expedia, Orbitz, Travel Channel, The Weather Channel, NBC, among others.