The Costa Rican Tourism Institute, known as ICT by it acronym in Spanish, recently released figures which indicate that approximately 2,183,000 tourists will have visited the country by the end of the year. Should this statistic be confirmed in January 2011 by the ICT, it would indicate a growth of 4 percent over last year.

This is an encouraging outlook for both ICT and the tourism industry, which presently represents 5 percent of Costa Rica’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Tourism is estimated to bring in $2.1 billion each year, and it has created jobs for more than 500,000 people around the country. At the height of the global financial crisis in 2008, tourism growth had slowed down for a couple of years. Thanks to innovative marketing efforts on ICT’s part, which have included extensive social media outreach, the number of visitors in 2008 was 2.08 million, and 2.1 million in 2010.

ICT’s savvy marketing campaign included direct outreach to North American television audiences. About a month ago, CNN personality Anderson Cooper gave a trip to Costa Rica as a surprise present to a couple who had been previously seen in a viral video. The trip was gifted courtesy of ICT’s Million Dollar Gift of Happiness campaign, which is based on Costa Rica’s standing as one of the happiest places on earth according to the Happy Planet Index. Business newspaper El Financiero revealed that the first phase of the marketing campaign will give out 80 trips to “people who could use some happiness in their lives.”

An increased number of incoming international flights is part of the growth strategy. German airline Air Berlin is now flying into Liberia’s Daniel Oduber Quirós International Airport every two weeks. JetBlue is another carrier which will be flying directly into Liberia from New York. Local tour operators are expecting to see this trend of direct flights to Liberia as a continuing trend for tourists who enjoy relaxing vacations and surfers who wish to skip San José and land directly in Guanacaste.

Now that Costa Rica’s Central Bank has adjusted its GDP growth projection slightly lower than the rest of Latin America, tourism is once again enjoying premier status as one of the country’s most relevant industries.