Over the last several years, the island of Puerto Rico has found itself consistently on the news. Once known as an island of beautiful beaches and warm people, Puerto Rico has been overtaken with a new identity: their 123 billion dollar debt. It’s certainly not a pretty picture, and the very public persona that has swept the island has taken a toll on its people.
In addition, the debt crisis is felt most harshly in the homes of its citizens– with many agreeing that the situation has led to a humanitarian crisis. In light of this, some have taken it upon themselves to create new solutions to stimulate the economy.
Local Guest is one of those solutions. Local Guest is an experiential tourism platform that was founded as a direct response to this economic crisis. They work with municipalities on the island to build new tourism products aimed at creating sustainable development.
With this effort, they aim to help locals create businesses, attract travelers to come to the island and as a result, create economic growth. They launched their website on August 1st and currently have experiences available in Puerto Rico’s art, food and nightlife scenes, as well as outdoor adventures.
I sat down with Carmen Portela and Mónica Pérez, co-founders of Local Guest, to speak about their motive for starting this business. They explain that the idea for Local Guest came as a response to the narrow approach that exists in the travel industry on the island.
“Historically, tourism in Puerto Rico has been targeted at baby boomers: the ones that love the beaches, drink piña coladas, go to El Yunque and Old San Juan and then leave the island. High season for Puerto Rico is when it’s cold in the states– but the rest of the year it’s the same tropical island with so much to offer. We’re creating products that will attract a different type of traveler”, Portela explains.
The travelers she’s referring to? Millennials. Millennials are traveling for leisure an average of 3.1 times a year, whereas baby boomers are traveling for leisure an average of .6 times a year. “We noticed that the market that is traveling is not coming to the island because we’re not offering the types of experiences they are looking for, which are experiences that are culturally rich and connected to the locals”, Portela says.
Credit: Local Guest
For Portela and Pérez, this idea was a long time coming. Portela has been involved in the tourism industry for most of her professional life. When she was 23, she started working in the public relations department of the Puerto Rico Tourism Company. It was there that she began to notice some of the issues around the type of products available for tourists. She was surprised at how much we were over serving a market while ignoring the rest.
After leaving her job, Portela started Synapse, a company focused on creating content and managing social media for the travel & tourism sector in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. Pérez was one of her first employees. During that time, the rise in Puerto Rico’s economic crisis began to take a toll on not only the travel industry but also on the island’s citizens.
“We were coming into work each day, and every morning, the local newspapers had headlines about how everything was falling apart. Everything in the news was crisis, crisis, crisis. So we were sitting at the office one morning and we started brainstorming. We realized that no one had tried to use the crisis to create something positive”, Portela says.
They came up with a plan. What if they could use social media to shed light on everything the island has to offer? They called in some of the best eco-tourism influencers in Puerto Rico, with the idea to have them showcase the other side of the island– the side that is incredibly beautiful and has so many vast natural resources. “We sat them down in our office and we told them, ‘we have no money, but we have you’. We decided that since we were not seeing a counteractive campaign coming from the tourism industry, we might as well create it ourselves”, Portela explains.
From there, they went on to start the campaign #crisisisland. Through the eyes of these influencers, they were able to showcase the beauty on the island. The results were astounding– thousands of people around the world were suddenly taking an interest in Puerto Rico.
The hashtag spread organically, with countless locals using it on their own pictures of the island. As a result, the campaign generated over 80,000 pieces of content on Instagram and Twitter, received 670,000 in video views and had over 76 million impressions worldwide and numbers continue to grow.
Through that experience, they got the inspiration to start Local Guest. “Crisis Island was definitely the catalyst. We saw the potential in bringing communities together and making something happen. And for me, when I travel, I know I’m willing to pay good money to have a local person show me around. People go to Japan and eat Ramen with locals and go to Argentina and take a Tango class. Why weren’t we doing that here? It’s inconceivable that it didn’t exist before”, Pérez says.
They started by going to the tourism sector and speaking to them about their idea– they expressed that difficult times in Puerto Rico meant that they needed drastic solutions. Through these meetings, they were able to convince them on their mission and vision. Others still struggled with this new model. “We were very vocal with each of the stakeholders, especially with those that are not in favor of the sharing economy. We showcased what we’re doing and how we’re different from other companies”, Portela says.
Local Guest is very unique in specific ways. For one, Portela and Pérez see their venture as a driver for creating micro businesses on the island. They explain that each of the hosts creates their own business around the experiences they are offering. They source hosts and walk them through the entire process: they help them flesh out an idea, map out the experience, and accompany them through the registration process. They provide help with permits, lawyers and even insurance. Although this means that the onboarding process can be long, they believe it’s worth it– their goal is to not only grow as a company but to help Puerto Rico grow as a community.
Credit: Local Guest
When I ask them what has led them to this early success, Portela and Pérez tell me that the team they’ve built is the reason for their early wins. They also tell me that they think that motivating people to start their own businesses has the potential to transform the island.
“Our team is very in line with our mission. Being in a culture of people coming to work every day and being happy– that’s such a big success. In Puerto Rico, nobody told us that we could build our own business. I was always told that if I wanted to work in tourism, that the highest goal I could shoot for was working at a hotel. No one told me that all of the issues I was seeing, I could create solutions to help fix them. So teaching people that they have the potential to grow their own business in the tourism industry– that’s the key to what needs to change in Puerto Rico”, Portela says.
Local Guest is starting to grow, and their goal is to become one of the leaders in the tourism sector on the island. They recently launched their website, and have also just launched a crowdfunding campaign to help fund their efforts. In the next year, they hope to continue expanding their product offerings and eventually expand to neighboring Caribbean islands. But mostly, their hope is to continue creating an impact on local business and to help create a new culture of sustainable development in Puerto Rico.
Portela and Pérez are a testimony to the creativity and innovation that can be born out of a difficult situation. They truly believe that out of crises, leaders are born. “This is a great opportunity for anybody that has an idea to just start. Getting up every day, listening to the news, and seeing how your government is not helping your country– that doesn’t help. You cannot dwell on it. We have to start looking into what we can create, what we can build, as a country. I think it’s time for the people of Puerto Rico to actually build what they want to see. Even in the midst of a crisis."
Group picture of the Local Guest team, out in Puerto Rico
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