Today, we said goodbye to our host families and made a few stops on our way to La Fortuna. On one of these, we were given a tour of a working pineapple farm. This tour gave great insight into how farms can double their operations between products and agrotourism. 

This tour represents a shift in younger Costa Rican’s interests from farming to tourism. There are a number of reasons for this. One is the economic stability that comes with tourism unlike agriculture which is vulnerable to bad climate and large company competition. Additionally, tourism incorporates more digital marketing, foreign language, and tech aspects as well as exposure to different cultures. This offers farms connections to the modern world. Finally, tourism offers younger generations a break from grueling agricultural work.

Despite these benefits, there are some drawbacks to the shift. There might be a loss of traditional farming knowledge. A reliance on tourism can also be unstable and bring harmful diseases. Going off of this point, too much tourist activity could lead to harm for the environment. Still, I think that it’s interesting for a business to profit off of a product or process of something that’s established (like the pineapple farm is doing with tours).