In Costa Rica, the equivalent of a large agency is not always an agency: often it is a hotel group, a tour operator with several properties, or a free zone company. Any of the three can fill your year.

The three client types

Local advertising agencies

Concentrated in San Jose. They buy by project, pay at thirty days and value reliability above creativity.

Hotel groups and operators

A single client may have six properties. If you work out well with one, you enter the other five without having to sell yourself again.

Free zone companies

Corporate content, recruitment and internal culture. Dollar budgets, formal processes and almost no competition between creators.

How they buy

They do not buy a video: they buy a reliable supplier. What they value, in this order, is that you deliver on the date, that you understand the brief without twenty rounds of back and forth, and that you issue a correct electronic invoice.

That last point is decisive in Costa Rica. A formal company cannot record your work without an electronic receipt, and no amount of quality compensates for that administrative problem.

What they pay

Less per piece than a small direct client, because they have their own margin or their own process. They compensate with volume and continuity.

What should not be accepted is a volume discount without real volume. A group price for a single hotel is simply a low price.

What they will try to get for free

  • Unlimited paid media rights inside the production price.
  • Perpetual, worldwide use, especially in tourism, where material is recycled for years.
  • Extension to other properties in the group without renegotiating.
  • Infinite rounds of changes.
  • Raw footage, useful for cutting new pieces without paying you.

Extension to other properties is the trap specific to the Costa Rican hotel sector. A video filmed for one lodge ends up on the channels of the other five properties, at the same price.

Write into the quote: "licence valid for property X; extension to other properties in the group is quoted separately."

The calendar rules

These clients decide budgets between August and October for the dry season. Showing up in January means arriving when everything is already allocated.

How to reach them

Write to the marketing manager, not the general inbox. Short message, three examples, your rate, your turnaround and one line about electronic invoicing.

Where to go next

One good institutional client stabilises your entire year. Our guide on how to become a UGC creator covers the rest of the craft.