Luxury hotels

It was a good week for promoting luxury tourism in the region, as both the New York times and the Washington Post raved about properties in Costa Rica and Guatemala.

The Post in a March 3 story praised La Lancha, a Guatemalan boutique hotel belonging to Family Coppola Resorts, headed Francis Ford Coppola, director of the Godfather movies..."Nature with a movie director’s touch, hillside paths with carved tree-branch banisters, a lovely swimming pool tucked into a scenic overlook...at one of Guatemala’s most exquisite boutique hotels".

The article also referred to the group's other specialty properties in the region - Blancaneaux Lodge and Turtle Inn - both in Belize.

Meanwhile, the Times a day earlier was eloquent on the subject of the Costa Rican hideaway of Buzzfeed founder John Johnson III - the beach town of Nosara in the Nicoya Peninsula, where the shacks of bohemian surfers have largely been replaced by high-end boutique hotels, and where more than a dozen new restaurants have opened in the last year alone.

Natural beauty, some of the world’s best surfing, and especially the embrace of an eco-friendly, all-natural, organic lifestyle, "lure affluent travelers to a once-sleepy yet still decidedly laid-back beach town, including waves of families who usually vacation in places like Telluride, Colo., Montauk, N.Y., or the south of France", said the Times.