Awarded 4 Leaves For Sustainability - Costa Rica Ecotourism Resorts

Our mission is to offer eco-friendly hospitality to our guests in a clean, comfortable environment that enhances its natural surroundings. This ensures that every visit to Costa Rica is an immersion into a natural and healthy environment. Our vision is to preserve and protect the local environment so guests can return time and again to witness the same natural beauty of Costa Rica they experienced on their first visit. And we want future generations to enjoy the same pristine environment that their parents and grandparents discovered. We do so by investment in the technology, equipment and personnel that will continue to improve upon our strong environmental focus. Click here to learn how you can help us in our efforts to preserve Costa Rica!

Playa Flamingo has received the highest Blue Flag designation for a beach in Costa Rica, that of three stars. The community recognizes that our efforts at the Margaritaville Beach Resort Playa Flamingo are a key factor in ensuring that Playa Flamingo has sustained its Blue Flag Certification and this year received a three star rating. The government established the Blue Flag (Bandera Azul) Certification program to engage all coastal communities in taking care of their beaches. Costa Rica′s Blue Flag program identifies and celebrates the cleanest and safest beaches based upon ecological quality and visitor protection, and certifies only the best beaches in the nation. Costa Rica's Blue Flag program has strict rating standards involving water and beach cleanliness. The National Water Laboratory conducts regular bacteriological sampling of water at our beaches, since water quality is one of the most important factors in Blue Flag status.

Discover the natural beauty of Costa Rica at the Margaritaville Beach Resort Playa Flamingo and embrace the country's passion for preserving its pristine nature.

• Walk on our beautiful Blue Flag Certified beach, explore tidal pools teeming with sea life and catch amazing sunsets.
• Go birding in the mangroves in early morning to see several of Costa Rica's 850 bird species.
• Discover our magnificent blue ocean depths while SCUBA diving.
• Hike up hills of the peninsula, see magnificent views and listen to the sound of howler monkeys, squawking macaws and the songs of indigenous birds.
• Go swimming and boogie boarding in the beautiful Pacific Ocean.
• Enjoy an organic natural clay treatment in our OnZen Spa. This treatment uses 100% organic clay found in Costa Rica's rainforests and thermal springs.
• Enjoy  watching the newborn leatherback turtle hatchlings find their way from their protected nests in the sand to the Pacific Ocean.

How we run the daily operations of Margaritaville Beach Resort Playa Flamingo is where we can make the biggest impact on environmental preservation. We are proud of the efforts we have implemented across our resort to reduce our carbon footprint and preserve the natural resources we rely on. Examples of this include reducing bottled water at the resort by installing water filtration drinking water units for guest and staff use, and replacing incandescent light bulbs with efficient compact fluorescent and LED lighting.

The Certification for Sustainable Tourism Program promotes environmental sustainability throughout Costa Rica, to preserve what has attracted visitors here in the first place. The CST was designed to differentiate businesses of the tourism sector, based on the degree to which they comply with a sustainable model of natural, cultural and social resource management. CST is regulated by the Costa Rican National Accreditation Commission and consists of a scale of 5 "levels" of sustainable tourism achievement. Through this sustainability model, we can protect our natural resources for future generations. In tourism, sustainability means a balanced interaction of three basic factors of the tourism industry: