"Tourism Perspectives for Mexico and Central America after September 11th" was the name of a video conference held Sept. 28 at the Latin American Center for Competitiveness and Sustainable Development at INCAE, the Harvard – affiliated Central American business school, in Alajuela.

The initiative, organized by INCAE with the support of the Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT) and the Hotel School of Cornell University, brought together tourism entrepreneurs from Mexico and Costa Rica.

Some 100 businesspeople got together for around four hours to listen to future perspectives on one of the country's major sources of income.

The speakers agreed on the need for creative ways to handle U.S. tourists after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Karen Weiner, Communications Strategy consultant based in Mexico, stressed the need to reach creatively a population that is questioning its future security and well-being. According to Weiner, the anxiety created by non-stop media coverage of the events makes people want to go back to the routine of their lives, and search for ways to entertain themselves. So, little by little they’ll begin to travel again. The U.S. media are beginning to restore the incentive to travel, she said.

"Competition will be tough," she added. "There's the need to be proactive and aggressive in marketing strategies. Once people go back to their normal lives, the name of the product should be in their minds."

For a while, the U.S. tourist will want to be closer to home, she said – one of the advantages for the Costa Rican and Mexican markets. Weiner's 22 years of experience in the travel business makes her confident that people will prefer destinations that seem "good neighbors", for economic as well as security reasons; and in this, credibility is the top quality they’ll look for. Weiner recognized the advantage of Costa Rica as a peaceful and non-militarized country, and emphasized that the tone of the message is what counts. "People don't want to feel like they are being taken advantage of," she said.

Peter Yesawich, former Cornell student and expert in tourism communications and marketing, emphasized the need to be prepared to meet the needs of a more aggressive customer, one who has found in technology a means to feel in control of his or her travel plans. He predicts that as business demands will be the first to return to the market, the leisure traveler can be affected by aggressive pricing through retail publicity.

To be able to do this, he said, the tourism market needs to have the resources to meet the new needs. He predicts giving special attention to people who already know where they’re traveling, because they’ll know what to expect and might feel more confident.

For Carolina Trejos, marketing director for the Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT), there is a need to go back to the idea of Costa Rica as an attractive destination because of its renowned pacifism, though in a subtle way. She also recommended going back to the travel agent, a figure somewhat shattered by the do-it-yourself approach to travel that the Internet offers.

All speakers recognized the limitation of not knowing what will happen next, as the U.S. prepares for military intervention in Afghanistan. The impact of the terrorist attacks is still too present in the minds of the U.S. traveler, they agreed, which is why they all urged creativity and professionalism in the tourism sector.