Puerto Rican Cities Promote Airline Route to Spain

Puerto Rican Cities Promote Airline Route to Spain

The municipalities of Puerto Rico's west coast are promoting an air link with Madrid and Barcelona to attract tourists, a move that would have an annual economic impact on the area of $35 million.

The initiative is being spearheaded by IDEO, a tourism promotion agency in western Puerto Rico whose members include hotels and city halls who want to spur the region's economic development.

The backers of the initiative have already invested $5 million to make the project a reality, an undertaking that will really get off the ground next Saturday with the departure of a flight from the Spanish capital en route to the town of Aguadilla, IDEO director Enrique Cruz told Efe.

The arrival of Spanish tourists will generate some $35 million for the economies of the towns along the island's western coast, where many of Puerto Rico's most beautiful beaches are located, Cruz said.

IDEO has contracted with U.S. air charter company ATI, which will link the Caribbean island with Spain by making flights using a Boeing 767, which can carry 214 passengers, Cruz said.

Initially, one flight a week will depart from Aguadilla for Madrid, while the return flight from Spain will depart from there the next day.

Starting on May 29, an Aguadilla-Barcelona link will go into operation with a return flight to Puerto Rico on Sunday.

Tourists who travel to Puerto Rico will arrive on the Caribbean island with a tourist "package" that has already been designed to include six nights in one of 10 hotels that, at first, will offer their services to the Spanish travelers, Cruz said.

Regarding the rationale for setting up this new link with Spain despite the fact that for decades it has been Iberia Airlines that has connected the island with that country, Cruz said that the former state-run airline mainly directs its services to business travelers, while what IDEO will offer is exclusively geared for tourists.

"We opt for Spain given the cultural closeness ... and the historic links (between it and Puerto Rico), as well as the ease of sharing the language," Cruz said.

Other options, such as the French market with flights proceeding out of Paris, were considered but the marketing study that was done found that the French public mainly likes to vacation in the francophone Caribbean, Cruz said.

IDEO is a non-profit corporation created to foster the development of the tourist economy of western Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico's tourist industry employs 17,500 and generates about $3.3 billion in revenues each year, accounting for 7 percent of the U.S. commonwealth's economy.