We are the best consolidated network of social organizations, which strengthens the local development on a national and international level, promoting a model of integral management of alternative, competitive and complementary tourism products and services, its goal being to satisfy the demands of its market and attending the needs of its affiliates.
I would like to greet you sincerely on behalf of THE NATIONAL ECOTOURISM NETWORK (COOPRENA R.L.) and on behalf of our affiliated organizations. I address you with the intention to present ourselves and to show you a summary of the activities we are currently carrying out in the field of Social Development with environmental, cultural and gastronomic responsibility.
COOPRENA R.L. is a Cooperative Consortium, a second grade organization that unionizes cooperatives and a series of other social economy organizations, with the goal to generate development and a high social impact in our country. We are a non-governmental development organization that, over the last 19 years, has set up a model for local development that utilizes community-based rural tourism as the economic trigger for its geographic area. We are a non-profit organization, with strategic partners such as: Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), FUNDECOOPERACION, Organization of American States (OEA), PNUD, etc. Entities with which we develop projects of social investment, to prepare our communities so that they can participate in the tourism business that is taking place in the country, in a way that allows for the democratization of the income generated in this area.
Our owners are 23 organizations, among which are: Cooperatives, Development Associations and Tourism Associations. These have been able to link in over 100 organizations participating in Community-based Rural Tourism, distributed in 40 different Costa Rican communities, through Projects carried out. We receive support from The National Cooperative Development Institute (INFOCOOP) as a strategic partner, and IDB, who have provided us with resources for the development and strengthening of Community-based Rural Tourism in our country.
Forming part of the support process for the organizations, we provide the following services:
1. Technical assistance and training without cost: we make sure to provide the people forming part of the affiliated organizations and Projects have the technical and technological tools as well as the knowledge necessary to achieve the development of their Projects and so that the micro and small businesses are able to provide a high quality and efficient service, in harmony with the environment.
2. Financing: through loans we seek resources to finance the development of the businesses and to strengthen the investments the organizations already started.
3. Marketing and sales: Before the projects start operating we initiate the promotion and sales process, so that the public starts to get to know them and they start to generate the necessary income for their development and compliance with their own social and financial objectives, in order to achieve the expected local development in the involved communities.
4. Administrative Center: We are establishing a booking center that will connect the Network, together with all of its affiliates and service providers SCRT, with COOPRENA R.L., and from which we will be able to control occupation, bookkeeping and cash-flow, and give them specific coaching according to their economic condition.
5. Agency Cooprena Simbiosis Tours: We have our own Travel agency called COOPRENA SIMBIOSIS TOURS, with an important portfolio of services, and whose star product is SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY-BASED RURAL TOURISM. This agency commercializes all of the products and defines routes, circuits, package deals, etc., in order to appropriately distribute the benefit among the affiliates. SIMBIOSIS TOURS has received the highest level of recognition in sustainability –CST-, and therefore serves as a role model of sustainability at an international level.
6. Traveling and learning in Costa Rica, an experience including the development of the cooperative movement as well as Sustainable Community-based Rural Tourism. This Project aims to share the knowledge and experience obtained in Costa Rica in the field of tourism development through Community-based Rural Tourism with the rest of the world. The Project focuses on learning about the cooperative movement and at the same time getting to know the country through the eyes of the men and women who have strived to develop Sustainable Community-based Rural Tourism in Costa Rica.
The NATIONAL ECOTOURISM NETWORK was created with the sole purpose of promoting the development of tourism in rural areas, in order to provide these populations an opportunity to generate income. This income allows them to protect the natural and cultural heritage of this country, converting it in an active income generator, and therefore leading people towards a responsible development. This will ensure that entire communities will have a motivation to protect our wildlife areas and all natural life for everybody´s sake, and recovering our cultural values and the natural human warmth of the people on the countryside.
In order to achieve the sustainable development of our communities, the visiting of tourists with social and environmental awareness is needed; people that appreciate visiting and supporting the people and the communities that are making an effort to develop in an environmentally responsible way.
Marvin Víquez Brenes
Manager and Legal Representative
COOPRENA, R.L
Tel: (506) 2290-8646
E-mail: gerencia@turismoruralcr.com