As you may know, Tico or Tica is the nickname of the people of Costa Rica and it is to our new and old Tico friends that we owe many thanks for the pleasant event.

The 4-day exposition was kicked off on the May 13 with a welcome speech from the President of ACOPROT, Carlos Lizama, followed by the distinguished Minister of Tourism, Carlos Ricardo Benavides, and Vice President of Costa Rica, Laura Chincilla. All three addressed Costa Rica's strong commitment to sustainable tourism as well as its goal to become carbon neutral by 2012.

In the following days, Edward A. Cespedes, President and CEO of Tralliance, spoke at two invitation-only events addressing the attendees of EXPOTUR regarding .travel, its progress, and the future of the travel and tourism industry on the Internet. Both presentations ended with much discussion from the audience about the benefits of .travel, search engine optimization, and the costs of registering a .travel domain name. Click here for video

That same interest in .travel was witnessed throughout EXPOTUR. Through various meetings arranged by our .travel Latin America partner, Jose Luis Cabada, the .travel team was introduced to many .travel owners and listened to their success stories. The .travel team was pleased to meet with El Salvador who had recently adopted www.ElSalvador.travel and has since launched various marketing campaigns. Additionally, an invited guest to Cespedes' presentation discussed with the team his plan to maximize the potential and create unique content for his portfolio of 70 .travel sites.