REGIONAL - JACÓ What Happened With the Small Language Tourism Business In Costa Rica?

Academia Tica Meeting the Challenge Sponsored Content

Costa Rica’s tourism industry has many — and perhaps the hardest — challenges ahead, and each sub-sector must cope in a different way. After four months in pandemic mode, the classrooms are empty at Academia Tica Spanish School’s two locations, but there is much learning going on.

The small company is one of Costa Rica’s first Spanish language schools, and one of the few dedicated solely to teaching Spanish (as opposed to many languages) and providing meaningful travel learning experiences. Academia Tica is also one of the few dedicated exclusively to face-to-face classes before the pandemic. This represented a huge challenge when the international borders closed back in March.

One day, suddenly, online became the only option, says Manuel Al-Ghassani, Director.

“We had a couple of crazy souls staying with us for the first months and some students chose to finish their course online.”

Although studying language in Costa Rica has been popular for decades, having to move all education online virtually overnight was daunting.

“We hit the ground running, and it was amazing to see our teachers rising up to the challenge,” Al-Ghassani says. “We have had an amazing response, mostly from our exstudents, which really makes us feel that they trust us.”

In this case, the school opted for private tutoring, which makes sense given its methods are geared towards practical skills.

Uncertainty ahead

Language schools everywhere can expect good and bad outcomes ahead for their business model. For most of them, the ability to maintain classes online is a huge benefit compared to other tourism businesses like hotels or restaurants, especially during strict lockdown.

However, these schools work almost exclusively with foreign students, who are restricted by travel bans. It remains uncertain how many students will resume travel to learn a language when these bans are lifted. With the industry as a whole betting on local tourism as a lifeline while international travel picks up again, this does not help schools.

What to do then? Academia Tica is counting on “keeping the pura vida flowing” and making use of the

most abundant resource nowadays — time.

Apart from offering online lessons, the school started a free “Conversation Club” to keep in touch with students. A small vegetable garden is underway for the staff to share harvested produce, all achieved with existing resources including the school’s own compost. A teacher training program with international speakers is planned, and online resources for students being designed.

“A school is 99% about the people: the staff and the students,” says María Alejandra Sarmiento, Administrative Director. “This is why we have kept everyone from both campuses on the payroll. For us, it wouldn’t be possible to keep a company like ours going if our staff is not taken care of financially, healthy and keeping busy.”

In the meantime comes the long odyssey of finding public and private bank financing, as well as structure while navigating the changing government restriction schemes.

The next challenge will come when Costa Rica allows international travel again in August, with conditions remaining to be seen.

These schools work almost exclusively with foreign students, who are restricted by travel bans.