View From Afar S2, E11: IPW 2026 | Discover Puerto Rico’s Jorge Perez on Turning the Bad Bunny Moment Into a Movement

Welcome to a special IPW 2026 series of View From Afar. In this episode, recorded live from the conference floor, Discover Puerto Rico CEO Jorge Perez sits down with Afar editorial director Billie Cohen to talk about what happens after a residency that brought 400,000 people from 108 countries to a single island.

Jorge came to Discover Puerto Rico with deep ties to the moment: as the former general manager of the Coliseo de Puerto Rico, he was in the room when Bad Bunny’s manager called two years before the residency to block out 31 nights. The result was a $200 million economic impact in two months, a 245 percent spike in Puerto Rico searches after the Super Bowl halftime show, and a tourism story that has only accelerated since.

Transcript

Billie Cohen: I’m Billie Cohen, an Afar editorial director. Welcome to View From Afar, a podcast that spotlights the people and ideas shaping the future of travel. And in this special series, I’m coming to you live from the floor of IPW the annual travel conference organized by the U.S. Travel Association, to share the best of America with the rest of the world. It’s a big moment in US travel. Our country is preparing to cohost the FIFA World Cup and celebrate its 250th anniversary. All this is happening even as international arrivals are down and global events are affecting travel across the world. But the reasons we all travel haven’t changed. In fact, they’ve become more important. Joy and connection. So we’re talking to industry leaders about how their destinations are adapting in a tough world, and how they’re finding ways to give visitors experiences that make them smile and make them feel welcome.

My guest today is Jorge Perez, the CEO of Discover Puerto Rico. And of course, the big tourism story in Puerto Rico is the island’s huge success with the Bad Bunny month-long sold-out residency in 2025. It brought 420,000 visitors to the island and more than $200 million in economic impact. Now, Jorge is looking at how to transform that moment into an ongoing tourism opportunity, and he’s the guy to do it. Before he took the reins at Discover Puerto Rico, he worked in marketing and finance as well as events and entertainment. In fact, he was the regional general manager for Legends/ASM Global, which manages not only the Puerto Rico Convention Center, but also the Coliseo de Puerto Rico, where the Bad Bunny residency took place. But concerts are really just the beginning of Puerto Rico’s and Jorge’s new story, and I’m excited to hear more.

Okay, Jorge. Thank you for being here.

Jorge Perez: Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Billie: All right. So let’s get into it because I know what’s on everyone’s mind is the Bad Bunny residency of last year. So last summer that was a defining moment for Puerto Rico. Huge crowds, global attention. What did that moment actually mean for the island beyond the headlines?

Jorge: Well, it was a very special moment. But let me give you a little bit of history, because my history with Bad Bunny, they’ve been kind of intertwined. Obviously, he has grown to a larger stardom than myself, but I was the general manager at the convention center in 2018 when he had his first major concert in Puerto Rico. 26,000 people. So he’s very well known on the island, and he was getting to be known. Fast forward to 2023. I’m the general manager at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico where the residency took place. So I was called two years before the residency by his manager, Noah Assad, so I can separate some dates for Bad Bunny. He was going to release that album. He was not going to tour, and he was going to ask people to go to Puerto Rico. At the beginning, it blew my mind. But once it started the 31 nights, because it was originally 30 nights, then it was a 31st night was a broadcast worldwide by Amazon Music. And it was just amazing, the energy there every night. And I didn’t go to all 31.

Billie: How many did you go to?

Jorge: I think, the tallies, I think it was like 21.

Billie: Wow.

Jorge: Yeah, it was very long. It was it was two months of Thursday, Friday, Saturday concerts. But what I saw after the 9th show, it was all people from outside of Puerto Rico. So approximately 400,000 people flew into Puerto Rico to experience this concert and what I saw was the most amazing demonstration of camaraderie, of brotherhood. Everyone was happy. Everyone had their flags and they had the hat, right? The pava, which is our hat, and they had the guayaberas, which is a local shirt, flags from Spain or from wherever they came from from Argentina. We had people from all over the world, actually 108 countries.

Billie: Wow. 108 countries.

Jorge: People from 108 countries visited us. But as an entertainment event. That was amazing. But as a promotional tool for Puerto Rico, it has been amazing and they did it very strategic. You can like his music. You can not like his music. That’s secondary. He has such passion for Puerto Rico, for promoting his culture. And we saw it in the Super Bowl halftime. The way they structured it, these are very brilliant people. Him and Noah and his whole management team, they built it around July, August and September, specifically the low months, the low season to impact. So they made a calling, he made a calling. I’m not going to tour the US, so come visit me. They came from the US, they came from all over the world.

But just how that promoted Puerto Rico and all the organic generated content by the users, just in an organic way of experiencing not not the concert. The concert was three hours, but people were there 5, 6 days. I think the average was 6 to 7 days. Wow. And then they were out and about everywhere in the island. And they were doing these reels and these videos, talking about the amazing experience and the value that that has from a promotional perspective is just incalculable. And that was one of the most amazing things from the residency. Obviously, the entertainment. It was a great show, but the experience people had on the island and how they how that was transmitted to the world. Because obviously today you do a reel and, you know, hundreds of thousands of people can see it. And all the experiences were caught and they were shared. Awareness of Puerto Rico after the Bad Bunny residency just skyrocketed.

Billie: How do you think that attention changed how people perceive Puerto Rico as a destination?

Jorge: Well, I think our culture was exposed. A lot of the stuff that he did in the Super Bowl halftime, he had it in his show. It was our culture. It was our culture was highlighted. So people who did not know much about our culture or did not know really where we were, they started searching Puerto Rico after the Super Bowl. Searches for Puerto Rico went up 245 percent. And for the traveler, that’s what they want to connect with the destination. They want to connect with culture. They want authentic experiences. And let me tell you, there’s a lot of great destinations, but there’s very few that offer the authentic experiences. We have five bioluminescent bays in the world. Five. Three of them in Puerto Rico.

Billie: Wow.

Jorge: So talk about authentic experience. You can go on a kayak ride in the middle of the night and see the phosphorescent bay, and you can put your water in and you see it glowing. You can only do that in 5 places.

Billie: And you said people stayed like 5 or 6 nights. How did that compare to how long people were staying before?

Jorge: Probably 3-4 days.

Billie: Wow. So it extended.

Jorge: It kind of I think it doubled. So that meant more, um, room tax revenues.

Billie: Yeah.

Jorge: It meant more spending because people stayed longer. And people who came from across the pond, like we say in Puerto Rico, came from internationally. Then they stayed more, I think their stay was probably 7 to 8 days. Spain was one of the countries from Europe that we most received. People. The international visitors for the residency stayed approximately seven to 8 days.

Billie: How has that changed your demographic since then?

Jorge: We’re focusing more on Europe, focusing on Spain. We’re focusing on England. We’re focusing on France, and they’re coming. We increased 17 percent from European visitors in 2025, 17 percent over 2024, and we increased 28 percent from South America. So we’re putting more effort into Europe. We’re putting more effort into Latin America, particularly South America, because our cultures are very similar.

Billie: Yeah.

Jorge: With with South America. So gastronomy, our upbringing, our values, they’re very similar. So we had people from all over from Colombia, Mexico and Spain. Those were the three countries that we most received, people from outside the US.

Billie: Got it, got it. So let’s step back for a second. We had this big event or big 31 events, and they can create a tourism spike like you saw. You said more than 400,000 people showed up. Do you turn the spike into an ongoing tourism?

Jorge: And that was a lot of people were speculating that we would have a decline after the shows ended in September. It has been told the contrary. We finished 2025. I see Bad Bunny was a big driver, but 2025 we finished with 8.5 million visitors. We had a room tax revenues of $154 million. If you compare that to 2019, which was a solid year, 2019 room tax revenues were $76 million, visitors were 5 million visitors spending in 2019, it was $4 billion. 2025 we finished with $9 billion. And jobs, uh, we went from 81,000 in 2019 all the way to 103,000. So there was definitely an effect. But what happens after that?

Billie: Right, right.

Jorge: January. February. March. Q1 of 2026.

Billie: I’m in suspense. What happened?

Jorge: Best quarter. Not in the last 10 years, not in the last 20 years, in the history of of Puerto Rico. Really the best quarter. Obviously you have to consider we had a very strong quarter. You have to consider the World Baseball Classic.

Billie: Okay.

Jorge: That added 30,000 room nights. The Puerto Rico Open which is our PGA golf. They all happen in March like within two weeks. And Fiba, we hosted the women’s qualifying tournament for the Women’s World Cup. That was 8 teams, international teams. So that was another I think like 12,000 room nights. So factor in three huge events to a very strong, very strong quarter. And then you get the best quarter in the history.

And then what’s happening here to the summer. The numbers are just as strong. So we have July actually, which is when the residency started July 2025. Our July this is booking pay. So this is not us forecasting the booking pace is there for July. We’re I think it’s like 25 percent higher than July in 2025, which is significant because that was the first month, half month of the. So we were thinking that July would already start showing a bit of a decline, just because it was skewed because of the residency. So but April, May and June are pacing ahead of 2025. So it’s very strong and it’s very positive because a lot of things have come together. So we had the residency and then we had the Super Bowl, which had also an effect to make that, to keep it, you know, pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing awareness.

Billie: Kept it on everybody’s minds, right.

Jorge: And then people come, I think this is the most important part. People are coming, they’re visiting and they’re having an amazing experience. And I think even though this is a gigantic industry, word of mouth is still so powerful. I mean, when you have someone telling you, I went to Puerto Rico and wow, what amazing people, they make you feel at home. And by the way, the food is amazing. And I went to a bioluminescent bay. You know, there’s only 5 in the world. They have 3. And the rum, I mean, where the rum capital of the world.

So there’s so many experiences. And I think the key to anything being sustainable, particularly in tourism, is the experience has to be their authentic experience, that when you have 8.5 million people visiting you in 2025 and they leave and they become ambassadors, and then plus all the promotion and the marketing of Discover Puerto Rico is doing very effectively. And then that formula is very strong. So I don’t think we would keep growing if the experience and the level of service, once they come to the destination would not be there. Then if people leave and say, yeah, Puerto Rico, yeah, you know, whatever, the food was so-so. You know, that goes a long way.

Billie: People wouldn’t want to come back.

Jorge: My, my travel list is all based on what my friends and neighbors are going.

Speaker 3 The human opinion still matters.

Jorge: Absolutely. You first of all, it’s a trust factor. So you want to feel comfortable where you’re going. You want to feel connected. And when somebody tells you it’s a great place. It’s safe. Uh, beaches, mountains. I mean, you know, 18 professional golf courses designed by the top architects in golf. You know, you have such variety that people are leaving and are talking. So when you have that formula is built for success.

Billie: Yeah, yeah. The Bad Bunny residency clearly a catalyst, but there’s got to be other stuff to keep it going.

Jorge: It’s not it’s not just Bad Bunny, right? I mean, Bad Bunny is helping, but the destination and the effort we’re doing, uh, we have a service recognition program, Discover Puerto Rico, for the group conventions in mice segment, where the different participants or the hotels or the service providers who are receiving these groups can nominate and recognize people for excellent service.

Billie: Oh that’s.

Jorge: Great. The first month of this program, we had 30 nominees, 30 nominees get a pin recognizing that they were nominated. We like to host. We’re great hosts. We’re very proud of our island and that’s 80 percent of the equation. The other 20 is training. But when you have that and you’re built to serve and you have that in your heart, then it’s easier to train and just, you know, enforce other techniques.

Billie: Yeah, yeah. And it’s so true because so much of the travel experience is the people you meet. That’s how welcome you feel, which I wanted to ask. So even before the Bad Bunny shows, there was a lot of conversation in Puerto Rico among residents about challenges of overtourism and wanting to protect local spaces and helping visitors engage with the local culture. So how are you thinking about like the right kind of visitor or getting them to the right experiences now that it’s increased so much?

Jorge: Where advocates have been responsible visitors, responsible travelers. So we have a program called Return the Love. It’s a series of videos. We place them in areas where we know the tourists like, um, hotels, and you can see it on our social media. When I was the manager at the Coliseo, I made one of those videos for the people who were coming for the residency. But it’s different stakeholders. So hoteliers, people from the bars, people from the restaurants saying, hey, listen, if you come to Puerto Rico, we’re going to open our arms. We’re going to give you the best attention, you know, roll out the red carpet, but you have to return the love. You have to treat us with respect and treat us right. So so that’s something that discover Puerto Rico spearheaded. Before my arrival, I was fortunate to do a video for the visitors who were coming for the Bad Bunny residency.

So I think that’s very important just to stress that we command, you know, respect for our people. Our people are working hard to give you the best time possible, you and your family. So, you know, just return the love. And that happens for the most part, people are very reciprocal. So people feel genuineness. I think in all this, people perceive when you, you’re genuine and when you really want them to have fun. And when you really go out of your way to help people. And I’ve seen a lot of examples, people who go out of their way for tourists, it’s not a program, a seasonal program. It’s it’s always because you, you have to keep people aware that there may be situations that are difficult because sometimes visitors are not not as kind as they should.

Billie: It happens.

Jorge: It happens everywhere. But but it’s a it’s minimum. We’ve seen it a bit in Puerto Rico, but it’s but you have to know how to react. I’m a firm believer that if you react well with a smile, then you kind of diffuse that situation. And that’s training. So that’s we’re really focused on that on training.

Billie: Yeah, that sounds like it for the travelers as well. Train all of us.

Jorge: Go into our page and you’ll see it. It’s a great series.

Billie: That’s great.

Jorge: Actually we have Kiké Hernández from the Dodgers. Yeah I think he has like 4, uh, World Series rings. He has a segment on return of the love.

Billie: Oh, that’s really cool.

So you have a lot of experience working with events and conventions from your experience at ASM Global. And of course, with the Bad Bunny residency. And now event travel is one of the biggest trends in travel. So what is one big lesson that you’ve learned from this that you would share with other DMOs?

Jorge: So our mission statement, when I was evaluating the opportunity, I read the mission statement, the bylaws and the mission statement is to bring economic prosperity to the island through economic growth, sustainable growth, through leisure travel groups, conventions, and meetings and events. This is part of our mission. Unfortunately, there’s not going to be a residency every year, but I’ve been very vocal that we have all the elements in place as a destination to have a destination festival, and I compare it to the magnitude of Coachella, South by Southwest, Ultra in Miami. And festival travel after Covid has just exploded. I think it’s a segment that has grown the most. People are traveling to concerts, people are traveling to shows, people are traveling to festivals, to sporting events. So I’ve been very vocal on creating a destination festival.

Billie: Great.

Jorge: So we’re getting together the brilliant minds on the island to join forces and create this. Because we saw the impact, it was approximately $700 million of economic impact in two months. And those are economic studies who would not want to repeat that? And these types of destination festivals, I mean, when you have Bad Bunny, his team on your side and you have other artists because it’s not just them. There’s the Latin urban music scene is dominated by Puerto Rican singers. And you have salsa also. So you have another genre that’s very popular. To have a successful festival for the destination, you have to have the pull to bring people in. So you have to be relevant. And we’re very relevant and we have the power to say, Hey, you know, all our artists join and say, you know, we’re going to have a festival we want you to play.

So that’s part of the success because you need a strong lineup. Yes, you need to track people and then you need the destination and the offerings and the gastronomy and the cultural experience. Because it’s not just a music festival, it’s a cultural festival. It’s a gastronomic festival. It’s fashion, it’s galas. You have all that within a two week period. It’s been transformational for many destinations. So that’s something that we’re looking at. It’s something that the lesson that the residency taught us is that we want to have something that could be, you know, year after year.

2027 looks pretty tight, 2028 and obviously, what months will it be? It’ll be in July, August, or September because those we’re going to follow the model that worked, right? Because it worked to perfection. It was a low season occupation at its lowest before that and then occupation at its high. So it was a very well thought out strategy. We’re just sometimes you have to look what people are doing. And it was very successful. So we’re not promoters, Discover Puerto Rico are not promoters, but we want to bridge the public sector, the private sector, the promoters, the management, the artists pull them together to have this huge festival and we have all the elements.

Billie: You have everything in place.

Jorge: Hopefully we’ll be here in a few years.

Billie: And speaking of promotion and the human interaction experience that we’ve been talking about, AI is obviously a huge conversation everywhere, but in tourism and how people are using it. So how is Discover Puerto Rico taking advantage of it or leveraging it to your advantage?

Jorge: Most powerful tool. Definitely. And just in the last 48 hours, there’s this AI generated song called “My First Time in Puerto Rico.”

Billie: By who?

Jorge: It’s a TikToker.

Billie: Okay.

Jorge: I don’t know his name because this has been really fast, but it’s just on fire and it’s very catchy. I’ve heard it already like 200 times. You want to keep listening. It’s the experience of this person, his first time in Puerto Rico, and he just narrates. I think it’s probably a minute of a song, very, very catchy. It’s the song is all AI generated.

Billie: Wow. And how is that helping tourism?

Jorge: Because we have people from everywhere, famous people, not so famous people singing along to the song at their house, in their kitchen. It’s just one of those things that has gone viral unexpectedly, you know, in the last 48 hours. I got my way here to IPW, I started seeing it and then it just started growing, growing. It is just so, that’s an example of AI.

Billie: And it’s so interesting.

Jorge: That type of exposure, that type of promotion, millions.

Billie: And it’s just this great example of wrapping so many of the things we’ve been talking about cultural experience, the human experience, also using technology and the tools available to us today to really start bringing people and more people in Puerto Rico.

Jorge: AI is so powerful that the song is so, you want to hear it and you want to hear it, and you want to hear it. Yeah, that’s a recent development. Talking about AI and how it’s definitely helping us. And, you know, we have to capitalize on that because it’s certainly a very powerful moment and it’s a cultural moment as well because people are looking at our culture.

Billie: Right. Well, thank you so much for being here. I really enjoyed this. Let’s sign off and we’ll go listen to the song a couple of times.

Jorge: I know, thank you so much for the opportunity. Great to be here.

Billie: Thanks for joining us for this episode of View From Afar. In the show notes, you’ll find links to everything we discussed today, as well as discover Puerto Rico’s social media handles and website, and be sure to follow along this week to hear more interviews with industry experts. You can find more Views from Afar on Afar.com and be sure to follow us on Instagram and TikTok. We’re @AfarMedia. If you enjoyed today’s exploration, I hope you’ll come back for more great interviews. Subscribing always makes that easy, and be sure to rate and review the show on your favorite podcast platform. It helps other travelers find it.

This has been View From Afar, a production of Afar Media. The podcast is produced by Aislyn Greene and Nikki Galteland, with assistance from Michelle Baran and me, Billie Cohen. Music composition from Epidemic Sound. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media Podcast Network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to its other fine shows like Culture Kids and The Explorers podcast.