Profitable near Hotel Cariari, and the international airport, San Jose

This Hotel is with a high annual rate of return that easily justifies the price, however with COVID it is a whole new situation. It is a little 34 room workhorse, ideal for investors who do not want the bother immediately with big needless changes but rather earn profits from the first day of ownership.

This Hotel was built in three stages, 1996 the front building, 2001 the back building and in 2009 the pool area was purchased and added. The thirty four hotel rooms tend to be quite spacious and fully loaded, most with two new queen size beds (some with three), all with private baths, some with bidets, all with flat screen TVs, all with powerful WiFi, A/C, Cubie Time alarm clock with charger, remote controlled ceiling fan and light, direct dial phones with VoIP to make international calls, coffee makers, hair dryers, a small writing table and chairs, an attractive armoire closet and dresser, and an in-room safe. Included are three suites with one king-size bed (usually for honeymooners) that have an in-bath Jacuzzi, microwave, a small fridge, and outdoor balcony overlooking the up-scale Los Arcos neighborhood and distant Escazu mountains.

We have a sixty-person bar and restaurant that is presently leased but can be broken, an 87 square meter solar-heated infinity pool and large solar-heated Jacuzzi. Plus, we have a big two-story solarium room with diffusion panels to allow natural light in, and big louvers on the ends for a constant fresh breeze. Guests can use our business station on the second floor with three computers for fun, research and to print their boarding passes, and a new breezy fully equipped gym. We have our own legal potable well with all the licenses and more water than we could ever use unlike much of the rest of our area who are forced to buy chemical water from the municipality. And we have our own gas-fired electric plant as electricity in Costa Rica can be occasionally goes out.

We are halfway between the international SJO airport and central San Jose, in one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in Costa Rica called Ciudad Cariari. There are four large chain hotels as our competition, the Doubletree San Jose Cariari by Hilton, a Wyndham San Jose Herradura, Country Inn & Suites by Carlson, and a bit further, the exclusive Marriott San Jose. By keeping our prices on the low side (before COVID-19 $120 double per night or much less depending on the season), we increase room occupancy and restaurant/bar sales.

This Hotel unique Central Valley airport and urban business location on the edge of a free zone means we tend to be busier year-round, compared to the seven month extreme low season that a beach hotel must endure, laying off trained staff to pay the fixed costs. And being 15 degrees cooler than the hot humid coasts, many Floridians, Texans, and Latinos come to the Central Valley to escape the heat in our low season with its perfect year-round spring-like temperature. And many vacation property owners prefer traveling in the off-season, renting their property in the high season to reap the greatest returns.

Costa Rica’s tourism is solid because of the plethora of experiences found away from its hundred idyllic warm water beaches, as many tourists return time and again with friends and family, young and old. Educational rainforest adventures; thundering volcanoes, whitewater rafting, Costa Rica is the home of canopy zip-lining; turtle egg laying; coffee plantation tours; bird watching, amazing plant and animal life; stunted cloud forests; and of course museums, shopping, the Central Market, cuisine, culture and nightlife of San Jose are all minutes away.

Ticos have often been awarded the happiest people on the planet with a great climate, lots of arable land and no standing army since 1948. It is conservative economically, no capital gains tax but functioning social programs are in place as well. When people think about eco-tourism, Costa Rica is the first country to come to mind. And Adventure Inn is central to the biggest activities offering day tours to Arenal Volcano, Monteverde cloud forests, Waterfall Garden Park, Pacuare Rafting, three other volcanoes, the Orosi Valley and both coasts. Many of our guests stay multiple nights at Adventure Inn and take a different tour each day. And being central to Costa Rica and close to the international airport, we are ideal for most travelers who arrive in the afternoon or evening and fly out early with plans to stay at any of a thousand more remote Costa Rican destinations in between.

And with our unique location, welcoming people into Costa Rica, everyone needs something, and we capitalize on this. The staff do their homework for the best deals and offer low and real cost cars and 4WDs to rent, we offer private and semi-private transfers to and from any Costa Rican destination, we offer over fifty world-class day tours from our front door each day, we even build multi-night circle tour packages for our guests booking hotels, tours at each destination and transfers between destinations as the guests explore Costa Rica. And little workhorse Adventure Inn earns a 20% or 25% commission on each sale. It sounds complicated but it really is not. We pay a small commission to our front desk staff, so they have incentive to continuously organize and sell everything, while guests only see it as excellent service.

Our location is even special within the Central Valley. We are not right in the heart of San Jose with its inherent problems, traffic congestion, crime, noise, and filth. Our guests often take a public bus or taxi excursion into the Central Market, Gold Museum, Plaza de la Cultura and the National Museum and nightlife but enjoy returning to our safe clean quiet upscale neighborhood for a good night’s sleep. And we are not at the end of a noisy runway like many airport hotels, but rather we are six kilometers away.

Our location is also good for filling up with supplies, the big Costa Rica food distribution center is near us to supply low-cost fruits, vegetables, and sea foods. We have a whole city to choose from for employees. At an isolated location, sometimes you take what you can get.

And finally, we are at ground zero, the closest hotel to Costa Rica’s new $62 million Convention Centre. Simply walk a total of four minutes between the duck ponds and cross the handicap friendly pedestrian bridge over the highway and you are at the front door of the convention center! It just opened and was starting to book some big conventions when COVID-19 struck, Google map us, we are practically right at the front door!

Adventure Inn offers an opportunity for a mature hands-on family, or an investor wanting to make that quantum leap to a safe investment in the tropics and earn an income from day one.

Before COVID-19, the hotel had a CAP rate of about 12.5 and a year-round occupancy floating around 70% before COVID, and this is before the new convention center has really started up with off-season conventions. One would be hard pressed to find another Costa Rican hotel this size, this nice, with a multi-income location, with excellent good will, earning this much income, and potential for more.

It’s time for me to retire after fifty years in the hotel business, concentrate on Masters swimming, travel and turn Adventure Inn over to someone who wants to take advantage of excellent good will and location, make minor changes, update here and there, and let the little workhorse start working again.

I hope this is the opportunity someone is looking for!