Jorge Pesquera. President and Executive Director of the Convention Bureau of Puerto Rico

20 February 2004 6:00am

Once you pull off this objective, what will your next goal be?

In my particular case, I’ve got some good news. As we speak, I’m the president and CEO of the Convention Bureau of Puerto Rico. But now I’ve accepted a new and important challenge for my professional career; the leadership of the Aruba Hotel Association (AHATA).

Will you juggle both hats?

No, I won’t. I’ll take this major challenge for my professional career from Aruba, and there I’ll apply all the knowledge and expertise I’ve learned throughout my professional life.

When will your new task begin?

Well, I’ll go to Aruba in March, so you’re the first international media organization to get this breaking news straight from the horse’s mouth.

Was it an easy decision?

It’s a personal decision. I thought it was just the right time after ten years leading the Convention Bureau. Now the Bureau is a solid organization, not only as far as human resources are concerned. We managed to make the Bureau’s budget jump from $3 million to $9 million, from 19 employees to a payroll of 50, and from 50,000 stay nights to nearly a quarter of a million stay nights, let alone that we’ve chipped in roughly $90 to $100 million to the country’s economy. Therefore, I’m very happy for having achieved the mission I was hired to do in the first place a decade ago. This Aruba post stands for something very positive for my family and it’s going to give me the chance of working in the realm of association management and the leisure market.

Who’s going to replace you in Puerto Rico?

Well, that’s up to the Board of Directors to determine. By the way, they’ll be meeting this week to map out a new strategy to follow. As I said, we’ve got an organization. There’re six people reporting directly to me and they are the marketing vice president, the sales vice president, the automation director, the finance and management director, the research director and the service director. I can assure you this is a very solid team that’s committed with the Convention Bureau of Puerto Rico. I hope they’ll consider someone for this job who’s worked for over eight, nine or ten years, someone who’s very familiar with the Bureau’s mission and operations.

What does the building of the new Conference Center mean to Puerto Rico?

A year and a half after its grand opening, this building –an edifice that stands for a pattern change in Puerto Rico’s fate- is actually going to put a positive spin on the kind of events this island nation can offer and plan. This is a conference center designed by one of the best companies in the business, the same company that sketched the expansion of the McCormick Palace in Chicago and other convention centers around the globe. This is going to be the Caribbean’s biggest conference center and one of the largest ever built in Latin America. Its halls can seat from 2,500 to 10,000 attendants to tradeshows and conventions. If we take account of the fact that this is only the first phase of the future congress center in Puerto Rico, we can then say the whole area is ready for expansion now, so those same halls could accommodate three times more participants in the future. That means that event planners and service providers linked to this particular business will be bound to raise their offers, thus opening new windows of opportunity. The conference center is definitely going to put Puerto Rico on the map as one of the most competitive destinations as far as fairs and conventions are concerned.

What other huge conference centers could be up to par with Puerto Rico’s and in which country they’ll be located?

I think the one already operating in Havana is a good match.

What technical and communication differences does Puerto Rico’s center have compared to the ones in other countries within the region?

Since this is the latest addition, everything is brand new. It’s equipped with high-tech communications, state-of-the-art building techniques and it’s even made to withstand wicked weather conditions, like hurricanes. Its facade is very similar to the Opera House in Sydney, resembling a huge tidal wave of glass and steel. It’s a luminous building. Puerto Rico is constantly overlooking the sea, so as a matter of fact, from the threshold of the banquet hall –which is a huge space of nearly 4,000 square meters- people feast their eyes on a breathtaking view of the San Juan coastline, with the Condado Plaza and Caribe Hilton hotels across the street and most of the San Juan Bay in the background. The sea, you know, seems as if it were inside the building.

There’s a building delay caused in part by the Puerto Rican private sector itself. Isn’t this postponement going to generate more drawbacks before the grand opening?

No, not at all. I’m sure all contracts have been handed in. The final and most important contract of all, the one dealing with interior construction and designing, was granted to the Campana Building Co. The $25 million contract contemplates exterior construction, cabinets and architectural finishing touches on floor tiling and walls.

How has the market reacted to this conference center?

Well, we’ve already sold some groups for January 2006. If we happen to sell something for late 2005, that’s obviously going to be in the short haul. Yet, we can still get a crack at it, but everything must be jointly programmed with the private operator that’s going to run the venue. We hope to attract some local fairs and other events for late 2005. And this is a project that’s already on the minds of convention association members in the U.S. and elsewhere. We’re bending over backward to spread the word that the date for the center’s grand opening is just around the corner.

There’s a shortage of hotel rooms for this kind of development. Are there any plans in the offing to build a new hotel?

As a matter of fact, we’re now closer to granting development rights for the new hotel to be built next to the Conference Center. There are three companies vying for those rights -Starbooks, Marriott and Hyatt. On the other hand, San Juan is enjoying a good deal of development projects right now, including the expansion of the Caribe Hilton Hotel with the addition of 300 new rooms to raise the number of accommodations to almost a thousand. Moreover, the compound of what used to be known as Beach Trio County will soon boast two hotels and a beautiful plaza called “Window to the Sea.” All these hotels are now called Vanderbilt County. A five-star hotel built in 1920 was recently restored and there’s another project underway in La Concha. This is a three-star hotel harking back from the 1960s. In all, these hotels combine for 700 rooms. In addition to this, we’ve got the Verde Island area, near the airport –about a 15-minute drive from the conference center and the new Holiday Inn resort- that adds up 240 more rooms. There are many other expansion projects in progress in San Juan because we’re both confident and upbeat that the faster the conference center goes opening up, the higher levels of hotel development we’ll see. But make no mistakes about it; we certainly need those rooms.

Is the European market a potential customer for you?

Absolutely. We’ve always thought there are plenty of opportunities out there for this market, either in Spain, Switzerland or the Netherlands. They’ve got lots of companies based here and we’re trying to lure them to this conference center. On the other hand, the favorable euro exchange rate is for the first time ever giving Puerto Rico the possibility of offering reasonable fares to the European market. We believe those opportunities have improved dramatically in recent years.

Will Lisa Altieri continue stationed in Spain as Director for Europe?

She’ll definitely remain in Europe. In fact, she was here last week for one of the meetings with all experts dealing with the congress market for the new Conference Center. We’ve hired specialized salespeople to work for the conference center in Washington, Chicago, in Puerto Rico and for international congresses. From her office in Madrid, Lisa is a person who’s highly committed with Puerto Rico. For quite a number of years, he’s been at the helm of the Puerto Rican Tourism Office in Madrid. She’s someone we can count on to give those opportunities a mighty leg up over there in Europe.

Jose Carlos de Santiago