Do people speak English in Costa Rica?

One frequent question that we get all the time is: how well do people know English in Costa Rica hotels? To many people's surprise, Costa Rica has a high rate of bilingual population and specially if you are staying at beach resorts / hotels, you won't have any problem communicating. Costa Rica's hotel owners know that their main source of income comes from US visitors. In high season, for most hotels, at least 60% of their reservations are from Americans. You would ask, well but still, why would accommodation owners want to cater to this market? Well, the reason is quite simple. Americans are more comfortable paying higher rates than locals. The economy in the US, at least in recent years, allowed people to afford better vacations abroad. Next time you feel concerned about your ability to ask for a cab or even to find a slot of "green time" in your next golf vacation, remember that in Costa Rica, you won't have to find words in Spanish: People speak your language. As for German, French or Mandarin, hum... you guess it right. Not so much. Only bigger hotels would have personnel that speak three or more languages. At some point I remember that the San Jose Palacio had somebody that spoke seven languages. However, that is very uncommon. In one sentence: If you are traveling to Costa Rica and want to communicate easily, you will need Spanish or English.