Discover Puerto Rico provides complimentary tourism promotion tools
Destination Marketing Organization Discover Puerto Rico has created a complimentary promotional toolkit with videos and photographs that will help the tourism industry market their services and products effectively a year after Hurricane María, it announced.
The toolkit contains before and after images of tourism sites in Puerto Rico as well as updated videos and photographs of various attractions to show the progress.
Also included are testimonies by recent tourists and local business owners sharing their experience in Puerto Rico and talking about the importance of tourism for the local economy.
The toolkit is part of the second phase of #CoverTheProgress, a campaign, launched on Aug 20, with the purpose of inviting international and local media to cover the progress and recovery of Puerto Rico too a year after the hurricane.
During the first phase of #CoverTheProgress the people of Punta Santiago — one of the Island’s hardest hit communities known for the S.O.S. image that went viral in the immediate aftermath of the storm — wanted the world to know they had a new message to share
As part of documenting the recovery, the residents changed the letters “S.O.S” to “Bienvenidos #CoverTheProgress” which means welcome, to make clear that they’re ready to receive visitors and tourists.
With this in mind, for the second phase of the campaign, Fernando (Nano) López Cepero, an artist graduated from the Río Piedras Campus of the University of Puerto Rico, along with the community, conceptualized an urban art design which was painted on the pavement near to the “Bienvenidos #CoverTheProgress” message.
The work of art is an image of a “Martín Pescador,” a common bird in the coastal areas of Puerto Rico and the community of Punta Santiago.
The #CoverTheProgress campaign and toolkit are pivotal, the DMO said, when taking into consideration that more than 50 percent of travelers said negative images and news coverage impacted their view of Puerto Rico as a tourist destination.
“We’re hoping to change that as the one-year anniversary approaches. Puerto Rico declared itself open for tourism in late December, and the local tourism industry has worked very hard for the past year to come back strong. There’s a lot to celebrate and we don’t want the one-year anniversary to set us back,” said Brad Dean, CEO of Discover Puerto Rico.
“While there’s still progress to be made in some areas of the Island, we’re asking for the vibrancy of Puerto Rico as a tourism destination to also be shared and for the milestones the local industry and communities worked hard to achieve to be celebrated. We’re taking this moment to encourage all audiences to help us spotlight our tourism recovery and invite travelers to visit us as tourism is a vital contributor to the economy.”
