39703-S-TUR of February 22, 2016, and its amendments, leaving the rest of the norm unchanged and so that henceforth they read:
"Article 2º-Scope of application. Those companies or service providers that provide or offer adventure tourism services throughout the national territory are subject to the regulations of this Regulation. Annexes 1, 2 and 3 form an integral and binding part of this regulation." "Article 3º-Definitions: For the purposes of this regulation, the following definitions are established:
1. Adventure Tourism Activities (Actividades de Turismo de Aventura): Tourist activities that take place in a natural environment, on land, water, or air, to explore and experiment, generally implying the existence of a risk factor and a certain degree of skill or physical effort associated with personal challenges.
2. Logbook (Bitácora): Physical or digital data record of events, circumstances specific to the activity, for example, the maintenance record of structures and of each piece of equipment and accessories, with the idea of serving as support to have a history of the processes involving the adventure tourism activity and with a view to making continuous improvements.
3. Public Roads (Caminos públicos): Land of public domain and common use, which by provision of the administrative authority is destined for free transit in accordance with Law No. 5060 of August 22, 1972, "Ley General de Caminos Públicos" and Decree 29253-MOPT of December 20, 2000, "Reglamento de los derechos de vía y publicidad exterior".
4. Adventure Tourism Service Provider (Prestador de Servicios de Turismo Aventura): Natural or legal person legally constituted and authorized to offer services in any of the modalities indicated in this regulation.
5. Tourism Guide (Guía de Turismo): Natural person with a credential granted by the ICT, who guides and leads tourists and excursionists in tourist activities within the national territory.
6. Qualified Personnel (Personal Calificado): Personnel available to the Tourist Service Provider, duly trained and with experience for the management of adventure tourism activities.
7. Sanitary Operating Permit (Permiso Sanitario de Funcionamiento): (PSF) Authorization granted by the Ministry of Health to any regulated establishment in accordance with the Ley General de Salud and its regulations.
8. Users (Usuarios): Persons who use the services of adventure tourism activities." "Article 4º-Classification. For the purposes of this regulation, adventure tourism activities are classified into:
1. Land-based activities: Such as mountain biking (mountain bike), trekking (trekking), horseback riding tours (horseback riding).
2. Air-based activities: such as hot air ballooning (globe flying), paragliding.
3. Water-based activities: Such as river rafting (rafting), scuba diving (scuba-diving), river tubing (tubing), kayaking (kayak), parasailing.
4. Activities with cables and ropes: Such as climbing, bungee jumping (bungee jumping), vertical descent with ropes (rappel), zip-lining (canopy), canyoning (canyoning), via ferratas, spelunking tourism (espeleoturismo), high ropes courses (high ropes course), pendulum swing (tarzán swing).
5. Motorized activities: Are those tourist activities where the vehicles used are directly powered by a motor, such as ATVs, motorcycles, boats, jet-skis." (.)
"Article 12.-Adventure Tourism Guides and Qualified Personnel. To carry out any adventure tourism activity, the tourism provider must have the intervention of tourism guides or qualified personnel for each specific activity performed.
Adventure tourism guides must have a valid credential granted by the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo, who, according to the provisions of article 14 of the Reglamento de Guías de Turismo, Executive Decree No. 41369 of August 8, 2018, must have up-to-date first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation courses.
In the case of qualified personnel, they must have a positive opinion from the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo (hereinafter ICT). For this, the qualified personnel must submit to the ICT the documentation attesting to experience in the development of these activities; being able to use for this purpose a sworn statement of experience issued by a tourism provider or international licenses that accredit them to perform the activity in question. This information must be verified by the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo through an opinion issued for this purpose according to the procedure established in Annex 3. Qualified personnel who work in adventure tourism activities must also accredit the approval of first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) courses." The tourism provider must keep at the establishment the list of adventure tourism guide personnel, as well as that of qualified personnel: full name, identification number, as well as the positive opinion from the ICT for each qualified person. Said information must be available to health authorities when they carry out control and follow-up inspections." (...)
"Article 21.-Creation, integration, and operation of the Adventure Tourism Commission. The Adventure Tourism Commission (Comisión de Turismo de Aventura) (hereinafter the Commission) is created as an inter-institutional collegial body, chaired and convened by the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo, with the character of an advisory body on technical matters related to adventure tourism activities and within the framework of this regulation. The Commission may also recommend to the heads of the Ministry of Health and the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo the review and updating of the contents of this regulation and its annexes, and may propose the design and organization of actions, agreements, and training programs on matters related to adventure tourism activities, based on an annual work plan.
It shall be composed of one principal representative and their alternate, from each of the following institutions:
- a)Instituto Costarricense de Turismo (ICT), appointed by its Executive Presidency and who shall chair the Commission.
- b)Ministry of Health, appointed by the Minister of Health.
- c)Instituto Nacional de Aprendizaje (INA), from the tourism nucleus with specialization in adventure tourism training, appointed by its Executive Presidency.
- d)Cámara Nacional de Turismo (CANATUR), appointed by agreement of its Board of Directors, whose communication shall be sent for accreditation purposes to the Minister of Health.
The members of the Commission shall be appointed for a term of two calendar years from their swearing-in, which may be extendable.
The members of the Commission shall not receive per diem or remuneration for their participation in it.
The Commission shall meet ordinarily once every two months or when necessary, and extraordinarily when convened by its coordinator. The quorum to validly meet shall be with three (3) of the four (4) members that compose the Commission. Agreements shall be taken by simple majority of the representatives present; in case of a tie, the chairperson's vote counts double.
In matters not provided for in this Regulation regarding the Commission, the provisions of the Ley General de la Administración Pública, Law No. 6227 of May 2, 1978, shall apply, in relation to the functioning of collegial bodies."