State participation in tourism development has its origins in 1930, with the creation of the first private hotel: "Gran Hotel Costa Rica", as a first class hotel, built with the support of private enterprise and the encouragement of the Government of the Republic . The tourist current of that time constituted foreign tourists, who entered by sea to the Port of Limón and, from there, they moved to San Jose through the railway network of the "Northern Reailway Company".
In 1931, the first regulation on tourism regulation was enacted, through Law 91, of June 16, 1931, where the "National Tourism Board" was created, which functioned until August 9, 1955, when it was created, through Law 1917, the entity that until today we know as "Costa Rican Institute of Tourism".
At present, the institution continues in a process of organizational change, which seeks a reinforcement of the processes that the institution has carried out up to now, but the most important thing is that it develops a series of proposals on new functions and processes that the institute must to assume, in order that the Costa Rican tourism industry is competitive and maintains its possession in the international market.
The main changes are focused on the strengthening of the formulation and implementation processes of tourism development planning, attracting and advising investors, the development of quality and competitiveness systems, the development of marketing in an integral manner, attention to tourists , the generation of information for decision making, reinforcement of processes for the improvement of management (control of services, income, administrative analysis), among others.
The vision is stated as follows:
"As of 2021, ICT is consolidating as the rector of tourism in Costa Rica, ensuring a model of sustainable, supportive and equitable tourism development that, through innovation, the development of human talent and effective public management, allows promoting new opportunities for development tourism that contributes to the improvement of competitiveness and quality of life to which we aspire as a nation ".
The institutional mission is defined as follows:
To be an institution oriented to strengthen the Costa Rican sustainable tourism development model through the definition of public policies, alliances, programs and projects to promote competitiveness, sustainability, equity, solidarity and the pleasant permanence of tourists, all with a view to improve the standard of living of Costa Ricans.
