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Paradise in Peril

COSTA RICA

The illustrious Hilton Waldorf Astoria brand is planning to open a 188-room hotel in Costa Rica in March. The property, the latest to join the company’s portfolio of 34 luxury hotels around the world, will include six restaurants, multilevel pools, a “movement studio” and a spa, Travel Weekly reported.

Stories of Costa Rica’s pacifism – or the success of the government junta to eliminate the military as a political force in the country, as Americas Quarterly wrote – as well as its pristine jungle, beaches, ecotourism, and Pura Vida (pure life) lifestyle concept are now enticing sufficient visitors to the Central American country to merit a new Waldorf Astoria.

Around 2.7 million tourists visited Costa Rica last year, added Cronkite News.

As the tourists flood into Costa Rica, however, the country is also wrestling with a mammoth crime problem that threatens that sector.

“We are going to shoot at the Legislative Assembly with AR-15s, and we will kill you in your office,” read a threatening letter that Costa Rican opposition lawmaker Andrea Álvarez recently received, according to Spanish newspaper El País. “We will storm Congress to unleash gunfire; there are 50 of us, and we will get rid of Sofía Guillén and those from the National Liberation Party and Broad Front.”

Álvarez belongs to the National Liberation Party. Sofía Guillén leads the Broad Front, a small leftist party. Both have accused President Rodrigo Chaves of stoking violence and crime in the country. Chaves has presided over the small nation, with its strategic location and long coastline, as it has surpassed Mexico to become the biggest transshipment point for cocaine bound for the US and Europe. Murders in the country have escalated in the same period, soaring to around 900 last year, a 53 percent increase compared with 2020.

“There used to be a limit here, people weren’t killed indiscriminately,” Costa Rican Public Security Minister Mario Zamora Cordero told the New York Times. “What we are witnessing, we have never seen before. It’s the Mexicanization of violence, to provoke terror and panic.”

Economic conditions have aided and abetted this shift. Despite the success of the tourism industry, inequality remains high. In 2022, inflation in Costa Rica reached more than 12 percent. Living costs for the typical family increased almost 60 percent, fueled by higher food and transportation expenses. Meanwhile, the price of cocaine has halved, fueling addiction.

The Costa Rican Times’ headline described the situation as “Paradise in Peril.”

“Costa Rica, long celebrated for its stunning beaches, lush jungles, and ‘Pura Vida’ lifestyle, is facing a growing crisis that threatens the nation’s peace and reputation as a tourist paradise,” the newspaper wrote, describing the “skyrocketing” crime rates fueled by drug trafficking, gang violence, and migration pressures. “As Costa Rica grapples with these issues, questions about its future as a safe destination for visitors and investors loom large.”

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