Costa Rica is one of the most queried destinations on popular and respected travel review website TripAdvisor. In fact, La Fortuna in San Carlos is one of TripAdvisor’s top ten 2013 Travelers’ Choice Awards for Destinations on the Rise, and Guanacaste is a favorite discussion topic among travel reviewers therein. For this reason, a TripAdvisor website dedicated to Costa Rica would make sense, right? At least that is what a web company based in Miami and San Pedro appears to have in mind.

TripAdvisorCostaRica.com does not seem to be affiliated to the NASDAQ-listed TripAdvisor Media Group, which also operates other known online properties such as TravelPod and Cruise Critic. TripAdvisor is a major Internet player that draws about 50 million unique visits per month and it is an established brand in the busy online travel market segment. The Internet domain in question is registered to the ominous-sounding Y2K Web Solutions, which has a forwarding mail address in Miami and offices in San Pedro de Montes de Oca.

Internet news website CostaRicaOn.com recently published an article that conflated the site as being part of the TripAdvisor online travel empire. The headline, in Spanish, reads: TripAdvisor Has Exclusive Site for Costa Rica. The article praises the photography and useful advice on the site, which does not actually evoke the feel of other TripAdvisor online properties and it is only in Spanish. Even the iconic stylized owl-eyes logo is missing from the site and is replaced by a crude clip-art image of binoculars.

Although the Y2K soubriquet recalls the uncomfortable pre-milennial tension of the late 20^th century as it related to a destructive computer virus that failed to reduce us to papyrus, the San Pedro developer displays an impressive client portfolio that includes the National Radio Chamber of Costa Rica, Saint Paul College and the Board of Private Accountants.