My trip abroad to Costa Rica allowed me to see a completely different style of business from what we are normally exposed to in the United States. By staying with a homestay, I was also able to see the ways that communications and values are drastically different across the countries as well. Overall, the trip left me with an appreciation for newer aspects of business I hadn’t thought of before and opened eyes.
Costa Ricans, referred to as “Ticos”, go about business differently from us. Where there is urgency and timeliness values a lot in our day to day life, most people in Costa Rica are a lot more laid back when meeting times came around. Using the “Tico-time”, you could easily add 10-15 minutes to any meeting time and still probably be early. They were also a lot more laid back when it came to professionalism. We were able to wear our normal street clothes pretty much everywhere we went and still fit in to the dress. They encourage questions that we probably would feel uncomfortable asking a U.S. company and allowed us full knowledge of how they built up their businesses in order to encourage us to work hard and pursue our own goals!