Media Spurs Influx of Financing for Costa Rica Luxury Resort

La Punta Papagayo

The Dare

Announce yet another luxury resort in Costa Rica, create a name for a virtually unknown team of developers from Minnesota, and do this for a development that is in competition with high-profile projects from several world-recognized luxury hotel brands and developers. None of these challenges were big enough to dissuade Glodow Nead when La Punta Papagayo in Costa Rica approached the firm to brand the new resort.

The Scheme

GNC astutely recognized that Ronald Zurcher, the project’s lead architect, was world-renowned and a close friend of the president of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias Sanchez. Glodow Nead’s strategy was to host a press event — attended by President Arias — at the architect’s home in San Jose, Costa Rica to mark the official announcement of the project. Before the assembled throng of media, the president declared his enthusiastic support as architect Zurcher unveiled a structural model of the entire 60-acre resort.

The Upshot

Glodow Nead secured the attendance of nearly every major Costa Rican publication (including La Nacion, equivalent to The New York Times, and La Republica, equivalent to USA Today). The following day, front page stories ran in those and other local publications and major Costa Rican television news networks ran extensive segments, not only reporting the president’s powerful support, but identifying the project as Costa Rica’s newest and most magnificent resort.

But the icing on the cake was its impact on the developers’ next task which was to secure a second round of financing. This step was essentially eliminated as offers from banks and other financial institutions came flooding in as a result of the far-reaching media attention.

Five years before La Punta Papagayo was originally scheduled to open, a host of influential outlets such as Travel + Leisure, Robb Report, New York Times, California Homes, Hotel magazine, Hotels Online, and many others, also covered the yet-to-be-opened resort.

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