Travelling to San Jose was a great way for me to experience urban and rural – all within half an hour.
The first stop on my travels was Costa Rica coffee plantation and Inn, Finca Rosa Blanca in the verdant hills overlooking San José. Every room is different and I admit to chatting up people in the restaurant in the hope of getting to see the art in their rooms. The talk at the dinner table was all about the unique Costa Rica inn architecture and commitment to the culture of travel – there are few sharp corners and the main building or main house is an eclectic blend of adobe and wood. The highlight for me was my bathroom. It reminded me of Hornby Island hippie chic, hand painted tile and hardwood features.

Overlooking the main house is the infinity pool with a roof top terrace and hot tub. I was there in the green season so the water was refreshing but not cold. The grounds of Finca Rosa Blanca are particularly verdant in green season so walking the path to the restaurant is energizing though at night, the sapos or toads like to feast on insects so be careful where you step! 

If you are looking for a place to hold a destination celebration, Finca Rosa Blanca is a good choice. There was a family group on a destination birthday trip celebrating two 60th birthdays.  This was the family’s third visit to Finca Rosa Blanca and all of us in the restaurant were treated to the music and dancing with larger than life mascarada puppets.  

Half an hour from Finca Rosa Blanca and in the heart of San José is the iconic and gorgeous Hotel Grano de Oro. I used Grano de Oro as my central point as I came and went from various locations in Costa Rica. This is my kind of business travel - downtown San José hotel that caters to my needs. I prefer staying in independent hotels and loved the fact that all the rooms I stayed in were different and all looked out onto courtyards! 

Since I had one afternoon free, I immediately fired up my smart phone to find the local urban culture. I walked to the Costa Rican Art Museum at Sabana Park, had a burger and a coke at San José burger joint, Soda Tapia. The following Saturday before I flew back to Canada, I was able to walk to the central market and then enjoyed a meal at the San José fine dining restaurant at Hotel Grano de Oro. I capped off my Costa Rica urban adventure by attending a production of “The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs” by the Little Theatre Group of Costa Rica at an English language theatre just two minutes from Grano de Oro hotel. 

Terry Rachwalski is the digital services specialist for the Tartan Group, a  travel media relations and marketing communications company in Victoria, BC.
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Terry travelled to Costa Rica working on client integrated marketing communications projects and found her love of Costa Rican coffee is even more intense in country. The Tartan Group is a Victoria, BC based communications and public relations firm representing clients  in Canada, the United States, the Caribbean and Central America.  The Tartan Group specializes in international tourism PR, hospitality with a niche in eco-tourism and eco-lodges.

You might’ve noticed the past year has been one of change for all of us here at Tartan Group: we moved to a funky new location at the corner of Blanshard and Fairfield Streets; we introduced you to Tartan Amplified, our digital branch that’s headed up by online-hotshot Terry Rachwalski; and we discovered just how deeply passionate Brian is for bright and colourful socks.

And now that we’ve finally made it through those long winter months, we figured now would be a good time to “spring” one more change on you – a new look and feel! For years, our brand was represented by a logo with two swooping arcs, showing how PR is a vehicle for storytelling and connectedness.

Even though our perception of what PR stands for hasn’t wavered, we felt our old logo didn’t fully represent how our new digital branch fits into the Tartan picture.

It’s a pleasure to introduce you to our new brand, as created by Brad Felt (the talented guy behind Creative Juices in Victoria, BC). With a dash of mad scientist and a sprinkle of coolness factor, our new brand shows how digital runs deep in all our veins and how online communications are fully imprinted in our PR DNA. The weaves and whorls of the design tells the story on how Tartan came to be where it is today, as a shop that fully integrates marketing, communications and digital. Cool, huh?

We hope you’re as happy with all the changes as we all are here at Tartan. If you have comments about our new look and feel, we’d love to hear them!

All the best,
Brian

Brian Cant is the Senior Communications Specialist for the Tartan Group, a public relations company in Victoria, BC.

I moderated a session on the Social Affect on Tourism Marketing at Social Media Camp on June 9, 2012 at 9:45 - 10:45 a.m. The panel will cover how to plan, create and measure social media campaigns.

Social Media and Tourism

When we first started talking about putting together this panel, we wanted to give specifics about how to start implementing or improving your digital presence. We wanted to be able to speak to the novice, but also give some examples of more sophisticated promotions.

We based the theme on the Plan, Do, Check/Act method of project planning, so the panel members can lead attendees through a process. We wanted to create a session for the tourism operator who needs to hear about how others have implemented social media programs and what worked and what didn’t.

Tourism Social Media Planning

Tartan digital maven and management consultant, Terry Rachwalski will start out describing how she leads our tourism clients through the stages and check points of a social media program. Your key takeaways will be how to create an integrated social media and public relations strategy and give real world examples of how to manage promotions. Terry has multiple social media promotions in the tourism industry running at any given time and just spent two weeks travelling in Central America presenting to tourism operators and taming spiders - she knows what your pain points are!
 

Running a Tourism Social Media Community

Avril Matthews, marketing director at Inn at Laurel Point, a Victoria waterfront hotel. Avril is a busy twitterbug and a long time, experienced tourism/hotel marketer; she does all the social media herself. So if you want to know HOW to do it and how to manage your time, Avril is the person to ask. She will walk us through the “Do” part of the process and discuss how she uses social media for client retention and to build loyalty with the Inn at Laurel Point brand.

Tourism Journalists, Public Relations and Social Media

To round out the session, we thought that anyone interested in social media for tourism needs to hear from a journalist. Tourism public relations is a time-honoured method to get your story out. And we rely on travel influencers like award-winning journalist and Lonely Planet author, John Lee to tell the story. Whether it is a witty review of favorite watering holes, scintillating discussion of cultural adventure or the allure of Reykjavik hotspots, John looks for colourful insights and anecdotes that bring a story and a destination to life.  And where does his research start? Well – it’s not the library. As the “Check/Act” portion of the panel, John will speak on how social media and web presence has changed the research landscape for journalists and discuss how operators can garner attention to shine the light on their properties.

Tourism PR: Deirdre Campbell

Deirdre Campbell is the founder and co-owner of the Tartan Group, a tourism public relations and communications firm specializing in tourism and eco-travel.