May 07--Costa Rica received 248,996 European tourists in 2012, and it's their favorite tourist destination in the region, followed by Guatemala with 172,160 visitors from that continent.

The figures were published in a report released this week by the Central American Tourism Promotion Agency, adding that the region as a whole increased tourist arrivals by 16 percent in 2012.

According to the report, 717,883 European tourists arrived in the region in 2011, while in 2012 the number rose to 832,576.

Germany and the United Kingdom are the countries that most contributed to these figures, as visitors from those countries accounted for 9.7 and 7 percent of visitors in the seven countries of the region.

Spanish tourists are third, as they increased their visits to Central America by four percent.

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