Skift Take
Many Caribbean destinations are on the road to recovery from recent storms, but they are also at the mercy of government relief efforts, which have fallen way short in some places. In Puerto Rico's case, the island is dealing with the federal government, which treated hurricanes on the U.S. mainland much more seriously.
On the day when U.S. President Donald Trump warned he won't keep U.S. first responders in Puerto Rico for a prolonged period and cited fiscal mismanagement as the cause of much of the island's woes, the leader of Puerto Rico tourism expressed confidence in the U.S. commitment.
The island's tourism industry is confident the U.S. government will stand by its side, Jose Izquierdo, executive director of the Puerto Rico Tourism Co., the island's tourism board, told Skift.
"I don’t think our plea is unreasonable," he said in a phone interview. "We're exercising our rights as American citizens. We're not asking for anything our neighbors in the other 50 U.S. states wouldn't ask for. We’re proud American citizens and are confident that we'll get the help we need because that's the American thing to do."
Izquierdo said the island's tourism industry views its current predicament as more of an opportunity than a setback.
Many Puerto Ricans undoubtedly don't see it that way. Puerto Rico, for example, felt the full force of Hurricane Maria last month when the storm made landfall in the U.S. territory with 155-mile-per-hour winds – the strongest storm to hit the island since the 1920s. But weeks later, much of the island is still without electricity — more than 80 percent of residents have no power — as well as clean water and essential supplies.
Earlier in the day, Trump was bu
