Allegro Papagayo Hotel CLOSED
On Tuesday Feb. 5th, the day after the Health Ministry denied the Allegro Papagayo's last appeals and called for the hotel's final closure, the news made national headlines.
The hotel was ordered closed last week after officials discovered hidden pipes pouring sewage into an estuary - the last straw in a long list of documented environmental offenses that began in April 2007.
The Citizen Action Party (PAC), the Ombudsman's Office, the presidential cabinet and all of the country's environmental groups rallied around the Health Ministry's decision to close the Allegro Papagayo.
By evening, virtually everyone had heard of the hotel's fate.
Everyone, it seemed, but the hotel's guests - left unaware in the all-inclusive bubble that has become the hallmark of most of the Papagayo Tourism Project's hotels.
Along the Allegro Papagayo's silky dark sand beach, littered only with pink shells and coconuts, The Tico Times interviewed seven guests, from Canada and the United States.
No one had heard the news.
"I had no idea the hotel was ordered closed," said a bare-footed Donna Murphy, of the U.S. city of Columbia, South Carolina, who just minutes before had watched as a howler monkey swung from limb to limb in a tree hanging over the beach.
"I came to Costa Rica because they do things right here," she said. "I just love the country."
Although her vacation at the Allegro might be cut short, she applauded the move. "I'd be more disappointed if they weren't going to close it down," she said.
The Costa Rican Tourism Institute has assisted in relocating guests left with no place to stay, according to officials.
"It's not the tourists that should be punished," said tourism minister Carlos Benavides.
According to Mario Calvo, director of the Health Ministry's Liberia regional office, officials will seal the hotel before week's end, to assure that "no more guests are fooled into believing it still open."
The closure, he said, will afford him and his inspectors time to investigate the rash of new contamination reports his office has begun to receive since the closure of the Allegro Papagayo.
"We have the support of the administration, and we will begin investigating every complaint we receive," he said.
From Tico Times
The hotel was ordered closed last week after officials discovered hidden pipes pouring sewage into an estuary - the last straw in a long list of documented environmental offenses that began in April 2007.
The Citizen Action Party (PAC), the Ombudsman's Office, the presidential cabinet and all of the country's environmental groups rallied around the Health Ministry's decision to close the Allegro Papagayo.
By evening, virtually everyone had heard of the hotel's fate.
Everyone, it seemed, but the hotel's guests - left unaware in the all-inclusive bubble that has become the hallmark of most of the Papagayo Tourism Project's hotels.
Along the Allegro Papagayo's silky dark sand beach, littered only with pink shells and coconuts, The Tico Times interviewed seven guests, from Canada and the United States.
No one had heard the news.
"I had no idea the hotel was ordered closed," said a bare-footed Donna Murphy, of the U.S. city of Columbia, South Carolina, who just minutes before had watched as a howler monkey swung from limb to limb in a tree hanging over the beach.
"I came to Costa Rica because they do things right here," she said. "I just love the country."
Although her vacation at the Allegro might be cut short, she applauded the move. "I'd be more disappointed if they weren't going to close it down," she said.
The Costa Rican Tourism Institute has assisted in relocating guests left with no place to stay, according to officials.
"It's not the tourists that should be punished," said tourism minister Carlos Benavides.
According to Mario Calvo, director of the Health Ministry's Liberia regional office, officials will seal the hotel before week's end, to assure that "no more guests are fooled into believing it still open."
The closure, he said, will afford him and his inspectors time to investigate the rash of new contamination reports his office has begun to receive since the closure of the Allegro Papagayo.
"We have the support of the administration, and we will begin investigating every complaint we receive," he said.
From Tico Times
Labels: costa rica, news, travel
posted by Christian Gomez at 1:01 PM
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