Saudi billionaire, Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, arrived in Costa Rica this week, saying he wanted to build six hotels in the country, two of them in the Gulf of Papagayo in Guanacaste. Prince Al-Waleed, whose Kingdom Holding Company is the biggest foreign investor in the United States, announced his hotel investment plan after a 30-minute meeting with President Oscar Arias in Casa Presidencial.

The number of visitors to Costa Rica grew 6.42% during the first half of this year compared to last year, according to statistics released this weekly by the National Tourism Chamber (CANATUR).

An estimated 50,258 more tourists arrived to Juan Santamaría International Airport, just northwest of San Jose, and northwestern capital of Liberia, this year.

Growing up in Hawaii, AOL co-founder Steve Case cringed as manicured cookie-cutter hotels took over the islands, wiping out precious natural spaces and crowding out local culture.

Now Case is proposing his own development in paradise: an $800 million, 650-acre luxury resort in Costa Rica. But he says he is aiming to avoid what developers have done to Waikiki, pledging to make the new resort -- which will be called Cacique -- an environmentally friendly and culturally sensitive destination.

MOPT (Ministry of Public Works and Transportation) assures having expropriations of properties on the main track almost ready. They have indicated that the larger bridges will affect the construction of two more lanes.