My Costa Rica Intern Manual

Greetings from beautiful Costa Rica! We would love to have you here as an intern in our travel agency My Costa Rica.

To give you an impression about how we work, we have set up this intern manual. It will answer questions interns usually have before coming to Costa Rica. Besides, the manual gives you an overview of how your work at our company will be!

Before your Internship

Who is My Costa Rica?

The My Costa Rica project began in December 2004 and since then we have steadily grown. However, we are still a small inbound travel agency that prides itself on the personalized service and attention that we offer our guests. Our goal is to provide sustainable tourism to beautiful Costa Rica, this real tropical paradise. We specialized in creating custom vacation packages based on the interests and wishes of our clients. We recommend only the best, and only offer hotels, resorts, rentals, and tours that we have visited or experienced ourselves. 

Do I need a visa to enter Costa Rica?

You should check with your local embassy for current up-to-date information regarding visa requirements. Generally, when you arrive in Costa Rica, you will receive a 90-days tourist visa. Once you have been here for 90 days you will have to leave the country for 72 hours to renew your tourist visa. When entering the country you need the following documents:

– A valid passport

– A flight ticket that proves that you’ll leave Costa Rica within the next 90 days

We are happy to issue you a plane ticket to Bocas del Toro, Panama. This will allow you to enter the country; you’ll just need to show it at the airport to immigrations. Once you arrive here in Costa Rica, you can decide if you want to use the ticket to Bocas del Toro, Panama or cancel it and choose to go to Nicaragua to renew your visa.

Do I need vaccinations to enter Costa Rica?

Your vaccination status will not be checked at the airport. Usually, you do not need special vaccinations like yellow fever or malaria.

However, we always recommend having all your standard vaccinations (Hepatitis, Tetanus etc.) up to date!

Do I get paid during my internship?

Yes! We can provide you $400 per month. You can choose from two options of how you would like to get paid. Either you get a check of $200 every two weeks or we can help you open a bank account in Costa Rica with the Banco Nacional.

Where do I live during my internship?

In the past, many of our interns stayed at least their first month with a host family. The place is close to our office, the rates are fair and our past interns definitely liked the experience. And you don’t need to worry about your accommodation before your internship, you can start looking for another place when you arrive here – or you keep on living with your host family. The contact is Lizi Alvarez ([email protected]). Feel free to contact her if you are interested in this option.

How do I get from the airport to where I am staying?

Once you arrive at the Juan Santamaria International Airport in San José, a My Costa Rica representative will be waiting for you. We will then take you to the place where you are staying – so there is nothing you have to worry about!

Where is the office located?

Our office is in Sabanilla, a suburb of the capital, San José. As our office is right next to the University of Costa Rice, you can be connected to many other international students. Besides, we are really close to San Pedro; a place with lots of bars where young people meet after work and at the weekends. So you definitely won’t get bored here!

What can I do if I still have questions?

Attached, you can find a frequently asked document with all the further information about our beautiful country. If there is still something you want to know, do not hesitate to send an email to [email protected]

During your Internship

Our goal is that your internship is beneficial for you and your studies. To maximize your experience, we want to show you how our whole company works. This is an advantage of our quite small team; you will get insights in each of our departments.

Sales Department

The Sales Department is the heart of our business. If we do not sell vacations, our business does not work. There are various exciting tasks you will be able to do in this department, for example:

– Creation of itineraries for the clients (choose destinations, accommodation, and transport)

– Direct client contact (sending e-mails and replying to them, phone calls)

– Organization of the sales process in SalesForce and Pardot (with these programs we organize our huge client database – as our business is growing daily, there is always something to do here!)

Reservations Department

Our Reservations Department is taking care of the contact with all our providers. Here we try to fulfill the wishes that the clients sent to our Sales Team. Your tasks will look like this:

– Making reservations for hotels as wells as with tour and transportation companies

– Keep price information up to date

– Creation of vouchers for the clients with all the necessary information for their vacation

– Sending and replying e-mails, as well as phone calls

Social Media Marketing

Social Media takes a big part of our marketing activities. Nowadays, this is one of the most important channels for advertising. During your time here, you will take care of the following Social Media channels:

– Facebook (posting photos and information every day, taking care of our Facebook pages, replying to messages)

– Twitter (posting photos and information every day)

– Google+ (posting photos and information every day to improve our ranks in the search engine)

– Pinterest (sharing and pinning a lot of pictures and trying to get connections with potential clients)

– Instagram (posting photos of Costa Rica every day)

– LinkedIn (posting photos and information every day and improving business connections)

IT Department

The IT Department mainly organizes our whole website content. Besides, it takes care of the whole IT equipment in our offices. During your internship, you will get insight into:

         – Organizing the content of our website

         – Setting up graphics and pictures for the website

         – Taking care of any other arising IT problems

Hotel and Tour Inspections

These inspections are probably the most fun part of the internship! Several times a year the hotel and tour providers ask us for inspections. This means for instance, that we spend a weekend in a hotel or doing a tour to get an insight of what we are selling. We never know how many inspections we will do in the future – but hopefully, you can take part at one of them!

After Your Internship

After you leave Costa Rica with new experiences, we would love to stay in touch with you! Maybe you’ll come back to our beautiful country one day or start your own Costa Rica business in your country and we can have future business partners! But most important is that your internship is a beneficial experience for you and your studies – we will try to do the best to make this come true!

Intern Study Guide

For you to get the most out of your internship here at My Costa Rica, please take the time to look over this study guide. It will help you if you are familiar with Costa Rica and our company to make a smooth transition as an intern. Remember you will be directly involved in our day-to-day operations so having knowledge about Costa Rica will mean your assistance will be even more beneficial. You can find all of the following information on our website.

• Look over the About Us section on our website to learn more about our company. Be familiar with our mission statement: To Promote responsible and sustainable tourism to this beautiful country we call home.
• Study a map of Costa Rica and be familiar with the geography and where popular destinations are located.
• Know the popular destinations in Costa Rica and what you can do at them: Arenal, Puerto Viejo, Manuel Antonio, Monteverde, San Jose, Tamarindo, Tortuguero, Corcovado, Nosara, Jaco.
• Look at tours that are offered in Costa Rica; there are many unique and fun tours. Costa Rica is famous for nature and adventure tours.
• Look over some of our vacation packages – you will be helping to put together itineraries so knowing some of the packages will help you.
• Research the culture of Costa Rica; the Ticos (Costa Ricans) are very friendly and have customs and traditions that may be different than what you are used to.
• Research typical Costa Rican food; be prepared to eat rice and beans. Stores here offer many options for you to buy a variety of products that you will be familiar with, you should also note that fresh fruits and vegetables can be quite affordable.
• Become familiar with the following social media sites: Facebook, Google+. Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. You can even start following us on our sites.