Puerto Rico Tourism: Destination Keynote

Transcript

Pedro R. Pierluisi:Greetings to all in the aviation field. Allow me to give you a warm yet virtual welcome to Puerto Rico, the Island of Enchantment. As Governor, it is an honor to be your host today. I want to thank CAPA for the opportunity to join forces and make this digital event happen. I'm thrilled about what these next couple of hours have in store for Puerto Rico and the air industry at large. This event brings a great lineup of speakers who will share their insights on new trends, best practices from around the world, and the diverse opportunities that are arising for destinations such as Puerto Rico. We're looking forward to learning, contributing, and implementing these new ideas in our respective fields. Today's topic is one that I am passionate about: innovation. Although it is most often associated with technology, innovation is basically the process of introducing something new— new ideas, products, processes, or visions. This is key because when we do things differently, when we renew and innovate, we can get different and better results. And results is exactly what we all want. We all aspire to accelerate our main industries, to promote growth, and to bounce back from the negative impact of the pandemic we've been suffering through at the global level. Innovation, strong collaborations, and well-designed strategies are vital to fuel our recovery and the return to progress that we were seeing before the pandemic started. Let me share with you what is behind my confidence about our path moving forward. As many of you know, Puerto Rico is no stranger to crisis management. We certainly have had a lot of practice when it comes to facing adversity and coping with unprecedented events. Our island faced the impact of the Zika virus in 2015 and 2016, the wrath of Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, and a series of earthquakes in early There is no doubt that the past 5 years have been challenging for our economy and our people. However, even with all these trials, it is important to note that they brought the best of our people who demonstrated our resiliency and made our destination better, stronger, and more prepared. From experience, I can tell you that every crisis brings opportunities. As Sir Winston Churchill used to say, Never waste a crisis, because it lets you foster innovation and lead a transformation. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, our focus has been very clear: seize the opportunities behind the health crisis and travel halt. Being an island destination, and therefore quite dependent on air transportation for our connection with the world, we have prioritized air travel recovery as an essential task. As of today, I'm excited to report that we're flying high and experiencing strong tailwinds that have accelerated our travel and tourism recovery. 100% of the routes have been recovered at our international airport, and 100% of the operations have been restored at our 2 main regional airports. For those that are number-driven, let me tell you where we're at. As of last month, our passenger arrivals were up by 14.8%, versus 2019 levels, and our seat capacity for the month of August was up 18.8% versus 2019 for the same period. The unprecedented figures we're experiencing in Puerto Rico are the direct result of our focus on leveraging the opportunities available, on doing the work to brand our destination, on catering to our visitors directly. We are experiencing record-breaking numbers in tourism because we concentrated on seeing the other side of the crisis. We delineated a plan, we innovated, and we set our path for transformation. I want your takeaway today to be: do not miss the opportunities that are sometimes disguised as challenges and problems. Innovation and collaboration is our key to success. Together, we can overcome anything and fly high once again. I wish you every success in today's session. My people and I thank you again for allowing us to serve as your host. I look forward to seeing you all in person next year here in Puerto Rico. Éxito.

Copyright policy: All transcripts on this site are the copyright of CAPA - Centre for Aviation. Our reproduction policy is as follows: you may quote up to 400 words of any transcript on the condition that you attribute the transcript to CAPA - Centre for Aviation and link to the original video page. All other use is prohibited. While we aim for 100% accuracy in the transcript, there may be some minor transcribing errors.