Government signs agreement with the airline Iberia | Others

The governor, Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia, together with the executive president of Iberia, Javier Sánchez Prieto, and the executive director of the Puerto Rico Tourism Company (CTPR), Carlos Mercado Santiago, announced this Thursday the signing of a new Memorandum of Understanding ( MOU) with the Spanish airline Iberia to expand capacity on the Madrid-San Juan route.

This Memorandum of Understanding contemplates the renewal of collaborative marketing and sales agreements to stimulate the arrival of additional European passengers and generate greater demand for the Puerto Rico destination. With this agreement, the airline maintains its historical commitment to the Island and will be operating the highest frequency of flights in more than two decades on the Madrid-San Juan route.

“Spain and Puerto Rico have a great cultural and commercial relationship that is increasingly reinforced with the participation of our Island in events such as FITUR and in the alliances that are achieved with such important companies as Iberia. As a result of the agreements formalized between Iberia and the Government of Puerto Rico in 2022, the Madrid-San Juan route has remained solid with an average of 4 to 5 weekly frequencies operating throughout the year. Thanks to this strong demand, during 2023 Iberia will add frequencies in high season, reaching up to a daily flight at peak times in August and September,” the governor announced in written statements.

He added that “based on the scheduled capacity, a local economic impact of over 20.1 million dollars is estimated.”

For his part, the executive director of the Puerto Rico Tourism Company indicated that, “during the past year, we were able to achieve several achievements as part of our strategies for the recovery of the destination and the expansion of the international flight network to Puerto Rico . Iberia is our most important trading partner in the European market. The negotiations we carried out at FITUR 2022 resulted in a greater frequency of weekly flights, the highest number of seats available in 20 years, and an increase of about fourteen percentage points in load factors during the second half of 2022”.

Governor Pierluisi recalled that successful promotional campaigns have also been implemented, which included the use of outdoor media in the city of Madrid, and the promotion of the destination in important European markets through an Iberia vinyl aircraft with a colorful graphic design highlighting icons of Puerto Rican culture, as well as the ‘LiveBoricua’ campaign carried out by the Destination Marketing Organization (DMO).

The executive president and CEO of Iberia, Javier Sánchez-Prieto, affirmed that “Iberia has always bet heavily on Puerto Rico, and I can say that it will do so even more during 2023. In the midst of this effort, this agreement is essential and will help us to stimulate tourist traffic to a destination that is arousing increasing interest among travelers from Spain and Europe, and which will be reinforced thanks to the greater capacity that we will be deploying this year”.

The Puerto Rico Tourism Company and Iberia will make concerted efforts aimed at maximizing the benefits generated by the operations of the Madrid-San Juan route for economic growth and the development of the island’s tourism industry. The current agreement between the CTPR and Iberia includes a series of initiatives through the airline’s communication channels such as the in-flight entertainment system, the Ronda Iberia magazine, its profiles on social networks and its website, among others, and is valid until June 30, 2023.

With the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding, additional strategies are incorporated into the effort, such as the use of advertising on large-format digital screens and bus stops in Madrid, the use of external media to promote the Island in markets outside of Madrid, and the inclusion from Puerto Rico in multi-destination campaigns to promote dynamic price offers and packages. In addition, a familiarization trip with one of the ‘top influencers’ of the Spanish market, a plan in social networks and a programmatic digital campaign to complete the dissemination of the Puerto Rico destination.