Introduction
The number one Costa Rica real estate and investment podcast bringing you experts from all over Costa Rica.
Happy new year guys and welcome to episode 278 of Costa Rica real estate and investments with me, your host Richard Bexson. Today we’re talking with Casey Halloran. Casey is the CEO of the Namu Travel Group and Costa Rican Vacations.
Costa Rica’s largest luxury travel company and probably Latin America’s largest luxury travel company. I know they move a lot of people through Costa Rica and even more throughout Latin America. So today we’re gonna be talking to him about kind of what’s happening in tourism, what happened, what he thinks is gonna happen and what he thinks is gonna happen in this election year that we have coming here as well guys.
So I’d love to get him on here because again I think tourism really drives real estate and not think it does. It’s what we use to kind of make a lot of our investment decisions here in Costa Rica. So it’s gonna be great to get his kind of viewpoint on what’s happening there.
Also guys just a shout out as a bit of a give back this year. Some of the guys have a bit of time here in the office so we are going to be giving away some free investment and real estate tours to clients. So if you’re interested and want to know more, again no obligation guys, there’s a link down below where you can organize a meeting to chat with Jake and Anna or email us info at investingcostarica.com, info at investingcostarica.com.
That comes directly to me and again you know we do a lot of analysis, we work with a lot of investors that come to Costa Rica and rep a lot of people that actually buy here in Costa Rica as well. And we just kind of just no BS guys, just give you kind of an idea of like really what’s going on and what you should be aware of. So when they say that there’s an airport coming in the southern zone, it’s never coming guys anytime soon.
Don’t believe it until it happens. So as I always say the Jedi mind tricks don’t work on us and we tell you kind of the truth about that stuff as well. As well as having a big office here with engineers, project managers and developers here so we can kind of give you you know even land development if you’re looking to do that and building.
We manage about 15 different homes or we project manage 15 different home builds a year usually delivering about 15 homes a year. So more than happy to help anyone that’s looking to build or develop here in Costa Rica. Just reach out to us again info at investingcostarica.com.
But let’s get straight into the podcast. Good afternoon guys, how you doing? Good Richard, happy new year.
Yeah happy new year sir. I appreciate you taking the time which I know is your busiest time of the year to join us here on the podcast.
Casey Halloran:
Well it certainly is. It’s less busy for me than the team. This is now where all I can do is hope the players make the plays.
Richard Bexon
I’m sure they’ll do well man. I’m sure they’ll do well. Well I mean look tons of volatility in 2025 dude and starting 2026 I mean like it doesn’t look like that’s gonna that’s gonna stop any anytime soon.
Casey Halloran:
Yeah I mean we were just saying I don’t think a lot of people had Venezuela regime change on the bingo card.
Richard Bexon
Probably not and we know that that’s probably gonna have ripple effects throughout Latin America.
Casey Halloran:
So yeah we don’t even really know right where.
National tourism cycles and new “chapter” for Costa Rica
Richard Bexon
How would you describe what happened in 2025 in Costa Rica?
Casey Halloran:
I think that 2025 felt like I want to say that maybe there are four chapters. COVID shutdown, post-COVID revenge travel, the subsequent gold rush to build all the inventory to meet the demand and now all that’s over and we’re starting a new chapter and none of us really knows what that is yet. And last year was sort of the beginning of that new chapter where it felt like the sands were shifting but no one was really exactly sure what this new new new normal really is.
And from my point of view I feel like tourism is just a leading indicator on real estate in that instead of selling a half million dollar house we sell that house or that hotel one one room night at a time. It took it took maybe all of Q1 last year for buyers and sellers to reset the market. And maybe in some ways that was the sellers meaning the hoteliers, property managers, villa owners being a little bit stubborn and hoping to hold on to the amazing times.
Demand fell just a little bit plus a lot more supply. It took a while for prices to reset. Now I feel like we’re through that.
Most people sort of understand that the party is over and now it’s back to hard work, good operating, reputation, building and maintenance and delivering good service, good experience. So how we head into this new year and what all this means, man who knows. I mean aside from neighboring regime changes probably other giant change of course is AI has entered the chat, right.
So it’s gonna be an interesting year.
Richard Bexon
Do you think 2026 year will be kind of like a normalization year or do you think it’ll be the start of like a new growth cycle for Costa Rica?
Casey Halloran:
I don’t necessarily know about growth yet. I think it’s just going to require much smarter and maybe more patient investing. I’m getting sort of Rocky IV back to basics, the barn sit ups of good experience, tight operations, knowing that we still are in this weird exchange rate environment in Costa Rica and also heading into our own huge election.
I think you’ve got to keep your eyes on the ones and zeros at the moment. Basically you’ve got to run a tight ship.
Richard Bexon
Yeah, no I agree. I mean again exchange rate of 490 something if you’re building here has a huge impact and if you’re doing a big project or thinking about doing a big project in Costa Rica has a huge impact. I think 2026 because I haven’t really talked about much on the podcast of what’s going to happen in tourism, I think it’s probably going to be a steady year compared to last year.
I don’t think it’s going to be a huge increase that’s for sure and we just might see little variations here and there.
Casey Halloran:
If I were just to guess, flat to slightly up?
Richard Bexon
Yeah, I think flat to like 2% up.
Casey Halloran:
But that’s again, if you’d asked me that two weeks ago I might have had a different, like the world’s just changing so fast that I feel like midterm predictions are almost fool’s errands. Ultra short-term one to two queues, reasonable. Super long-term, like is beach real estate going to go up?
I mean like there’s sort of these long-term axioms make sense and then short-term it’s trying to predict the midterm six months to 12 months.
Richard Bexon
Yeah, that’s difficult to do man.
Casey Halloran:
I feel like since post-COVID it’s been nearly impossible.
Richard Bexon
Yeah, yeah. That’s why like when people are like Rich what’s your one-year plan? I’m like I’ve got a idea dude but I’m just going to surf the wave that comes.
Casey Halloran:
Fail fast, right? Fail fast, course correct. I think that’s just a way safer and better plan.
To real estate or investing I think not that dissimilar from tech. It’s you build an MVP, you see if it works, then you build two. Still works, build three, build five.
As opposed to I’m going to knock out two dozen houses. Well, what if the market moves? What if no one likes them?
I mean there’s just, I just think agility is the name of the game now.
Richard Bexon
I remember when I built the passion project a year up in Dota, I actually advertised it before even doing it that it was available just to see if there was demand for it and then once I started getting inquiries and stuff I was like okay yeah there’s demand for this.
Casey Halloran:
Yeah, that’s like a Tim Ferris move, right? I mean you might as well find out early and when you can still afford to eat the stakes or for it to be a total failure. I just think the old days of like building a 600 room hotel like and you know we’ve had a few of those projects here that have ended up in lawsuits because again the new huge factor is this exchange rate thing.
Richard Bexon
Well, and then you think about airlift as well, okay. It’s like you know and you factor that in and go okay you’ve got all these big new hotels coming in like do we have enough airlift to fill these hotels? No, no we don’t.
Casey Halloran:
You know and in our zone now I think a piece of that story is Nicaragua where what does it matter if you can’t get there?
Richard Bexon
Correct. I mean what are the trends that you’re seeing that are shaping the future of tourism in Costa Rica?
Visitor profiles and competing Latin American destinations
Casey Halloran:
I’ve seen some really interesting stuff more recently and I’ll tell you the weirdest, I don’t know if it’s necessarily weird, you’re definitely seeing sort of a bifurcation between people have tons of money and everybody else, right. So that’s I think one thing is out of those upper ends the $1,500, $3,000 a night, I think most of that stuff’s still doing pretty well. I do wonder sometimes if given that we’ve sort of had a crazy resort surge in the last 12 months of openings out of the ultra high end, I’m very curious to see how all those guys do.
But on the lower end, the middle of the road traveler is basically, at least for us, has vanished. They’re just gone. I don’t know where they’re going but they’re not coming here.
Maybe they’re going to Panama, maybe they’re going to Mexico. But the thing that, the clever thing that I wouldn’t have seen coming is, I think the millennials and the zoomers, they’re coming for shorter and shorter periods, probably in part because that’s what they can afford. So we’ve never seen more four and five night inquiries, shorter and shorter vacations, shorter stays.
We used to think, oh that must mean that somebody’s booked part of their trip already. Nope, coming for four nights.
Richard Bexon
Could any of that come from the point of view of that also the flights aren’t that expensive like they used to be? I mean an 800 buck flight now is 300 sometimes.
Casey Halloran:
And I think mentally and in some cases physically, because Costa Rica does have good connectivity, Costa Rica doesn’t feel that far anymore. If you’re from Florida or Texas, even Georgia, basically the SEC, man Costa Rica’s a quick hop.
Richard Bexon
I mean what are the other destinations you’d be thinking of? Mexico, Dominican Republic, Hawaii?
Casey Halloran:
But again, we’re way closer than Hawaii from the Southeast, way close. I mean we’re really competing with Mexico and Caribbean and I would assume to some extent Europe, but we’re closer than Europe.
Richard Bexon
Do you think that like travelers expectations are changing in like ways that operators and developers just are not like understanding or underestimating?
Casey Halloran:
It sure seems like the old riches and niches thing is becoming incredibly true. I mean we’re just seeing incredible degree of specialization in hospitality. I mean I keep joking that we’re going to see some like women’s only ayahuasca pickleball retreat.
I mean hotels are getting that specific and or in the retreat model, the hotel becomes whatever the retreat leader wants. So you know these hotels are shifting from.
Richard Bexon
Like events. Yeah.
Casey Halloran:
I think the other thing to Richard is, I think more and more guests expect things to do on property. And that doesn’t necessarily mean resort levels of menu options. It just means like do you have walking trails?
Like is there something to do beyond go to the gym or a yoga room? Like we need more and more micro tours, coffee tasting, rum tasting, salsa classes, language classes. Stuff that I don’t think takes a ton of effort for hoteliers to produce.
And then at the Airbnb and whatnot levels, the checklists of what people expect just keep getting more and more hotel like. Yeah.
Casey Halloran:
So I don’t necessarily know any wild trends except huge disparity between haves and have nots. Have nots are still finding a way to come with shorter stays. And then it seems like there’s a new niche born every month.
Richard Bexon
Well I mean and I think that’s the only way to survive though in Costa Rica. I mean there’s just so much out there and so much noise that like you have to gorilla market which is find that niche if that makes sense and just own it.
Casey Halloran:
You can’t be a generalist. No. I mean- Right.
The were for families and for couples were affordable and were expensive. Like now people I think if there’s one thing that seems clearer and maybe this is social media, maybe this is politics, people want to hang out with their people. Yeah.
Casey Halloran:
You know what I mean? They want to go even when on vacation they want to be with their tribe. Right.
I mean I get it. So I think that presents a lot of opportunities.
Richard Bexon
I agree a hundred percent. I mean where do you think there’s a mismatch in demand case, you know, hotels, boutique resorts, luxury villas, family scale properties, you know, where is that biggest demand mismatch today?
Manuel Antonio and Arenal: hybrid villa–hotel models
Casey Halloran:
I mean you and I talk about this nonstop, right? But there needs to be a clearer and better overlap between that residential resort experience, the Airbnb standalone rental experience and the hotel. We need more hybrid and more blend where you can’t even quite tell if you’re at a hotel or you’re at a rental.
Instead of the worst of both, figuring out the best of both of those, so basically the hoteliers need to think more like developers and developers need to think more like hoteliers. And if you don’t know one or the other, then you outsource to someone who does.
Richard Bexon
Yeah. It’s just amazing that developers never talk to hoteliers or, you know, tourism orientated people and the people in tourism never talk to developers of real estate.
Casey Halloran:
So yeah, I mean you would think that the ultimate, assuming the goal is property value, the ultimate expression of property value is what someone will pay to stay there for one night. And it’s hard to get max value per night if there’s not an amazing hospitality piece to it. Yeah.
I can’t think of too many people who are really impressed with square feet or quality of fixtures, right? It’s when I pressed zero, good things happened as opposed to you know, it’s New Year’s Eve and my TV doesn’t work and there’s no one to fix it.
Richard Bexon
Well, I mean, look, Casey, you and I talked for that for, I don’t know, 20 years and we still continue to think about it until the point where I was like, dude, let’s go out and do it, you know, which is, you know, in Mount Antonio what we’ve done and what we’ve done in Aranau because we saw what worked, what didn’t, what was missing and what the client was demanding and what the client wants sometimes when they’re traveling with family is, I want a private villa with hotel amenities and services.
Casey Halloran:
Well, you know, it’s sort of like all trends, all trends sort of run their course and I don’t know about you, but now when I’m planning holidays, I usually default to hotel. Maybe, and maybe that’s I’m older, maybe not as price sensitive as I was when I was younger, but you have a couple bad Airbnb experiences. It makes you appreciate what only hotels can really do.
Some of that security, some of that is all the amenities, the service, but, you know, it sure would, that’s why professionally run property management and professionally run villas are just the best of all worlds.
Richard Bexon
And there’s not that many of them in the case.
Casey Halloran:
Man, in Costa Rica, I don’t think I can even fill up one hand.
Richard Bexon
Yeah. You know, so yeah, it’s, I mean, look, when I travel, you know, sometimes you want two rooms and then you add that two rooms up and you go, wow, that’s expensive. Whereas an Airbnb is a lot less.
The problem is with an Airbnb is you don’t know what you’re going to get sometimes. And when something goes wrong, what’s the property company like, like probably management company and yeah.
Casey Halloran:
I mean, I think of it almost like spirit air. You can fly it 10 times and it goes just fine. But that 11th time that it doesn’t, you’re like, I’m not doing that again.
Richard Bexon
Yeah. Yeah. Are there any regions or destination, you know, kind of types that you think are going to surprise people on the upside in the next few years?
I mean, are there any ones that you’re like, this could be interesting guys.
Regional opportunities: Liberia, Arenal, Central Valley and Turrialba
Casey Halloran:
You know, there’s a lot of, there’s, I mean, Costa Rica still has so much potential. I think you almost have to look at, you almost have to look at the highways and the flights to see where access has improved. And there’s a lot of secondary and tertiary destinations that do have some infrastructure, maybe for political or business reasons, but don’t necessarily aren’t necessarily hyped yet.
I think anything within about two hours from Liberia will be that volcano beach, you name it, is always going to be a decent bet. And if it’s purely for investment reasons, I do think a lot of investors are probably too enamored with the beach as opposed to R&L stroke law for tuna alternatives.Yeah.
Casey Halloran:
You know, I, maybe this is wishful thinking on my part, but I really do think the Central Valley is overdue for a resurgence. If only because traffic has gotten so bad that I have a hard time over the next 10 years, imagining all TECOs jetting to the beach every weekend. I just don’t think it’s sustainable.
So given how wonderful the weather is here in the Central Valley, and honestly, the Central Valley, I think is stunningly beautiful. I think somehow the Valley got left behind. So it’s going to be interesting.
You know, you and I both talked about the fact that Hotel La Condesa finally seems to have been slated for a rebrand under Hilton. I think that’s just one example of like an iconic former property that is due for a comeback in the Central Valley.
Richard Bexon
I mean, look, you and I trade Airbnbs all the time of like interesting ones and hotels, you know, all over the country. That’s interesting. Still, again, I completely agree.
I think there’s a lot of runway here in the Central Valley for two, three night stays of people coming in. That’s just a little bit more unique.
Casey Halloran:
And you know, the kicker versus the more obvious investment destinations, one, easier to get permits, two, infrastructure generally better because some of these places are adjacent to residential, adjacent to populations, staffing, materials. So again, maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part, but I really do think the Central Valley is probably going to get 50% larger in terms of population in the next 10 years. I mean, this is, and by the way, if Venezuela gets even worse, add another million Venezuelans to Central Valley populace.
So let’s see, but that’s one that’s always in the back of my mind. And again, I think anything nearly barrier is always going to do fine.
Richard Bexon
Yeah, I agree. I agree. Well, look, I mean, you know, Costa Rica, you know, you always talk about those cycles that, you know, kind of tourism goes through.
I mean, you know, is Costa Rica a maturing destination? Is it not, you know, probably not that mature, but it’s kind of, it’s kind of on its way. I mean, and, you know, it had this magic in the nineties and 2000s, and maybe it has some of that today, but like, what do you think it’s got to protect it in order to like really lose its brand?
Brand, environment and spreading visitors beyond Tamarindo and Arenal
Casey Halloran:
Man, I’m passionate about this one. Not just because this is where I live. And that’s the industry that I depend on depends on the brand of Costa Rica, not getting too tarnished.
I think probably some of the shine came off post COVID because prices got so ridiculous. And when prices get crazy, you have high expectations. Also, I think there’s sort of like a TripAdvisor effect where once you have a thousand amazing reviews, you start getting guests who don’t read, who just showed up because it’s popular.
And those are the people that get disappointed, right? It wasn’t necessarily the right traveler. They just went because all their neighbors went.
So I think back to the Rocky IV barn sit-ups analogy, we got to get back to some of the basics that made the country so great long before you or I ever got here. One of those is obviously the environmental protections. Can’t bend too much on that stuff because when you look at the destinations that ran their course faster, Gold Coast of Spain, parts of Hawaii, certainly parts of Mexico, usually it’s because the investors started to get ahead of the passion project people and start breaking the rules or bending the rules.
Taller towers, more boring city-style condos. So I think we got to make sure that these environmental agencies stick to their guns and aren’t too easily bribed by a giant foreign development project. The other thing is we’ve got to make sure that the economic impact is being felt deep into the community.
I’m always harping on this Airbnb value-added tax thing because one of the loopholes of short-term rentals, and I don’t mean to pick on Airbnb, that’s just sort of a Kleenex reference to all nose tissue, right? But what made Costa Rica so great in the 80s and 90s was the vast majority of your dollars spent here stayed here. The rub of short-term rentals is if you want to really minimize your tax burden, you don’t let any of the money land here, only your cost plus operation.
So the way that a lot of destinations have cat and mouse and gotten ahead of that is they make Airbnb or the platforms remit their value-added tax. And some of these places have even gone hardcore, Mexico, Barcelona, et cetera, like all the money has to land here. Maybe that’s a little bit extreme, but again, if you start having all these nine-bedroom, $4 million beach villas next to slums and none of the economic benefit, the tax base, the roads, the security, the safety isn’t being felt locally, well, geez, there’s plenty of destinations like that out there, not the least of which are the Caribbean.
Jamaica comes to mind. I don’t think Costa Rica can afford to be that, particularly when so much of our brand is Tico’s are nice. But part of that niceness was a lot of locals have done really well through tourism.
And then I’d say last is we need to make sure we’re doubling down on just sustainable models, agro-tourism, you name it, but we need to evolve the development rules and maybe close some of the loopholes so that we’re building for the long haul, not just chasing trends.
Richard Bexon
Well, and also that we have other destinations because you talk about destinations in Costa Rica, there aren’t that many, man.
Casey Halloran:
Yeah. I mean, if we can wave a magic wand and really see something happen in this next phase, if we want to spread the tourists out and limit the speculation and keep places affordable, and when you’re a tourist, have a great experience so you don’t feel like you’re waiting on a canopy platform for a dozen other people to go first, we’ve got to spread the tourists out. And so there’s probably no less than 10 second and third tier destinations that really just need the right combinations of incentives or public-private partnerships to just really get kickstarted.
And if we spread the tourists out a little bit more- And the money can spread out as well. And the traffic. I mean, we need to spread the wealth a little bit.
And man, this is an amazing country where you can cross the whole thing and Caribbean to Pacific. Some of these lesser known and left behind destinations, let’s just throw Turrialba out there, for example, everything slightly east of San Jose, they really merit getting back on the circuit.
Richard Bexon
Yeah. And they do. It’s beautiful over there, man.
I mean, it really is. I mean, look, we could name multiple different places about Costa Rica, even the southern zone areas and those mountainous areas, which is just absolutely stunning. It’s the country’s best coffee comes from the nicest people.
Casey Halloran:
There’s no shortage of physically stunning places here. We need a little more tourism infrastructure, tour operators, restaurants, you name it, all the amazing stuff that comes in the later stages. Because it feels like in the case of, say, let’s just pick on Tamarindo and R&R for a second.
All right, enough. There’s enough there now. We don’t necessarily need 10 more hotels and 10 more restaurants in those places.
We got enough. Now, let’s move to the next town. There’s a couple of towns over that if you’re the hotelier or the restaurateur or the tour operator, open a second shop. Yeah.
Closing thoughts on 2026 investing and tourism
Richard Bexon
Well, look, we’re sitting here in, I mean, well, Jan 2026, and we’ll probably do one again in Jan 2027. And you want to summarize in one sentence what you think 2026 is going to be for tourism and investing. What would that sentence sound like?
Casey Halloran:
I think it’s really tempting at the end of these amazing cycles to start to get enamored with balance sheets and profit and loss and sort of trying to math your way to an empire. I think we’ve got to make sure that all the amazing things we did that got us here, we’ve got to go back to those roots. So I’d like to see more patience, more passion and less spreadsheets.
And look, I’m a numbers guy as much as anybody else. I just, I think it sometimes gets really tempting to try to ones and zeros this game as opposed to, because it just feels more controllable, more scalable. But the unscalable parts that make the developing world so awesome and so unpredictable and so hilarious and funny, that’s the lightning that’s really hard to bottle.
But man, that’s why people travel. You don’t get on a plane and go all the way somewhere else to go. Sweet.
Marriott rewards. Exactly like I remembered. Some people do that, but that’s not necessarily why Costa Rica got to the place that we’re at now.
So I just think we’ve got to go back to some of that stuff and go like, all right, what is it that we can do that nobody else can do? And it’s not necessarily gold plated sinks.
Richard Bexon
Well, if you go back to the case, I don’t think most people were doing it for the money, to be honest. When you go back to the original people, the 90s that we know, you talk to them, they’re never talking about ones and zeros.
Casey Halloran:
I mean, this is sort of the endearing thing, is all of our older friends who were the first real generation on the Mount Rushmore of tourism here, these are all just passionate pioneers, pirates, crazy people. And they wanted to share some of that crazy. So the tragedy, of course, is that usually is in your youth.
Now, Costa Rica is expensive. This isn’t necessarily a place you can just come down and bootstrap a project anymore. So once you start talking 2, 3, 5, 10 million dollars, there’s a CFO, there’s a couple of lawyers.
And very often that sort of sucks the soul of a lot of things. That’s where the water slide gets erased from the rendering.
Richard Bexon
Over my dead body. There’s times where I’m like, I should probably look a bit closer at the numbers, managing other people’s money and stuff when we build. But I’m like, look, if you build it and you build something great, the money will come.
We’ve increased our average daily rates by 25% for the rest of the year. But how can we do that is because it’s an amazing experience.
