National Symphony Orchestra in concert all week
Tuesday, 7 p.m., Basílica de los Angeles; Wednesday, 7 p.m., Anfiteatro de Guayabo de Mora; Thursday, 7 p.m., Iglesia Sendero de Luz, Desamparados; Friday, 7 p.m., CENAC. Free entrance.

Martes por la Noche
“Arts, imagination and investigation in music,” conference led by Hildegard Froehlich of the University of North Texas, 7 p.m., room 107, UCR School of Music, San Pedro.

Photography exhibit
By Floria Herrero Pinto, opens Tuesday, 7 p.m., with performance by mime artist Tom Zabel and poetry reading by Herrero, Costa Rica Country Club, Escazú, contact floriam2@ice.co.cr.

Iron Maiden in concert
Heavy metal, 8 p.m., Alejandro Morera Soto Stadium, Alajuela, www.specialtickets.net.

Canadian under-18 female tennis players took charge Monday in the first day of the Costa Rica Bowl tournament, obliterating the competition.

Favorite Khristina Blajkevitch, of British Columbia, aced her Costa Rican opponent, Carolina Miño, 6-0, 6-0. Quebecoise Marianne Jodien beat Mexico's Karen Hernández 6-3, lost one 2-6, and pressed on to win 6- 4 in the tie-breaker.

In the boy's division, Mexican Gerardo Meza is the top seed.

Monday's highlights included Colombia's Andrés Herrera squashing of Salvadoran Sebastián Moreno, 6-2, 6-3, and Venezuela's Enrique Mattos beating Dutchman Gino Meeuwsen 6-3, 6-1. Mitchell Krueger, of the United States, lost his first set to Czech player Pavel Vanis 2-6, only to come back and slam him 6-3, 6-3.

All Costa Ricans were knocked out early from the competition, according to tournament press coordinator Francisco Sanabria Mena.

The Grade 3 tournament takes place through Saturday at the Costa Rica Tennis Club in the western San José district of Sabana Sur.

Costa Rica's pull factor for business tourism is set to get a needed boost this month, a leader in the sector said.

COCAL, Latin America's congress consortium, is hosting a major event in San José from March 10 to 14, inviting some 250 companies dedicated to drawing conferences and other business events (see www.cocalcostarica2009.com/bienvenida.htm.)

About 14 percent of Costa Rica's visitors are here travelling on business, according to Leonel Bonilla, president of the Association of Professional Organizers of Congresses and Related Events of Costa Rica. However, he said, this country has “inadequate development in the business tourism field in relation to other Central American countries.”

Guatemala, Panama and El Salvador have concentrated their efforts toward attracting business events, building convention centers big enough to house major international congresses. These countries also have created specific policies directed at promoting themselves as prime business travel destinations, Bonilla said.

Costa Rica should take advantage of its “natural attractiveness, international prestige, strategic location and air travel accessibility” to improve its standing in the market, he said.

The Sandinista government has inaugurated a new petroleum industrial complex in the Pacific port town of Corinto that dramatically increases Nicaragua's ability to receive and store Venezuelan oil.

The industrial park, named “From Bolívar to Sandino,” was built as part of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) and features massive storage tanks that can hold a 17-day reserve supply of fuel for the country's energy needs.