Costa Rica is known to attract a fair share of international visitors, but Ticos are catching up to foreign tourists –and they are turning to Google to plan their domestic getaways.  According to a report on online business daily Estrategia y Negocios, more than half of all Ticos who go on vacation within Costa Rica started their trip on Google.

Google is paying attention. The Internet search giant recently commissioned a Research Online – Purchase Offline (ROPO) report to look into how tourism to Costa Rica is unfolding online. After compiling the reports, Google sent a representative to meet with the National Chamber of Tourism (CANATUR in Spanish). Camila Borda, Google’s account manager in Central America and the Caribbean, conducted a workshop with tourism executives that focused on the marketing strategy known as the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT). This strategy, which Google is promoting in a widely-read eBook, is billed as a “mental model of marketing.”

At the workshop, Google also revealed the following statistics:

Of all the Ticos who are currently online, 23 percent are searching for the following terms on Google:

• Agencias de Viajes
• Guanacaste
• Hoteles todo incluido
• Monteverde
• Parques Nacionales
• Playas Costa Rica
• Rent a Car
• Río Celeste
• Volcán Arenal

The majority of foreigners searching on Google for tourism information about Costa Rica are based in Canada, Central America, Puerto Rico, and the United States. Within the latter nation, people from Colorado, Florida, New Jersey, New York, and Wyoming do most of the searches.  They usually input the following search terms:

• Costa Rica vacations
• Costa Rica resorts
• Costa Rica flights
• Guanacaste beaches
• Flamingo
• Playa Grande