Puerto Rico eyes international students as key to boosting tourism

San Juan, May 28 (EFE).- The growing number of international students at universities in Puerto Rico is emerging as another way to boost further the island’s tourism sector, which in recent years has posted record numbers of visitors.

Janid Ortiz, director of industrial affairs at Discover Puerto Rico, said the presence of international students on the island would “definitely” benefit the sector. Ortiz made the remarks during the forum Educational Tourism: Puerto Rico as an Academic Destination, organized this month by GFR Media and the Spanish news agency EFE.

“When the student is here, they’ll also want to spend their vacations here in the summer. They’ll invite family and friends, and people will spend, they'll consume, which is what we want — for our businesses to be impacted, especially small and medium-sized businesses,” she told EFE.

Ortiz noted that Puerto Rico is experiencing “historic numbers, with four straight years of breaking visitor records,” receiving seven million passengers last year alone — an achievement that “had an incredible economic impact.”

To keep pushing growth in the sector, which is vital to the island’s economy, transforming universities into hubs of educational tourism is an attractive formula, she said.

Achieving that, however, will require funding so that the island’s destination marketing organization can promote Puerto Rico among international students. A related legislative proposal is currently being debated in the Senate.

“The first thing we would have to do is a market study. We are a data-driven organization — everything we do is based on analysis and research. We would need to understand the appetite for different subjects, whether there’s interest in bachelor’s, master’s, or postgraduate programs, because that will significantly shape our message and our target audience,” Ortiz explained.

Before launching any marketing strategy, Ortiz emphasized, the organization needs to identify “which areas offer the greatest opportunities and which countries would yield the highest return — because that’s key: the economic impact this will have for Puerto Rico.”

“We would be thrilled to take on that mission, if it comes to pass in the near future, because Puerto Rico needs it,” said Ortiz, who spoke as part of the forum’s panel titled Puerto Rico as an Epicenter for Educational Tourism: Challenges and Opportunities for Driving Economic Growth.

Discover Puerto Rico has already collaborated with student groups and partnered with Ana G. Méndez University and the University of Puerto Rico. So far, they have brought in 17 student groups from different parts of the world and maintain a dedicated section on their website focused on educational tourism.

In Ortiz’s view, for Puerto Rico to succeed as an educational destination, collaboration between the public and private sectors is “very important,” as it’s “a national effort.”

“A lot of responsibility falls on Discover Puerto Rico as the destination marketing organization, but the truth is this is a collective effort, a collaboration to ensure that the student arrives here and has the experience we’ve promised,” she concluded. EFE

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Photo showing, from left to right, seated: president of Inteligencia Económica and economist Gustavo Vélez; former Puerto Rico Secretary of State David Bernier; director of industrial affairs at Discover Puerto Rico Janid Ortiz; vice president of T-Mobile Puerto Rico Jorge Martel; and deputy director of Puerto Rico’s Department of Economic Development and Commerce Carlos Ríos, alongside Juan Pablo Fernández Cebrián (far left), EFE’s business director for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. The image was taken during the panel Puerto Rico as an Epicenter for Educational Tourism: Challenges and Opportunities to Drive Economic Growth, part of the forum Educational Tourism: Puerto Rico as an Academic Destination, held in San Juan (Puerto Rico). EFE/ Thais Llorca

Photo of Janid Ortiz, director of industrial affairs at Discover Puerto Rico, participating in the panel Puerto Rico as an Epicenter for Educational Tourism: Challenges and Opportunities to Drive Economic Growth in San Juan (Puerto Rico). EFE/ Thais Llorca

Photo of Janid Ortiz, director of industrial affairs at Discover Puerto Rico, participating in the panel Puerto Rico as an Epicenter for Educational Tourism: Challenges and Opportunities to Drive Economic Growth in San Juan (Puerto Rico). EFE/ Thais Llorca