An innovative approach to drive more business to the destination.
SAN JUAN – Meet Puerto Rico announced the organization’s transition to a new business model resulting in a complete overhaul in the way it does business. Modeling itself after newly identified industry trends and strategies, Meet Puerto Rico will now market the destination’s ability to host major city-wide conventions through three key areas; traditional sales efforts, branding and strategic partnerships.
“Puerto Rico is once again becoming a popular global brand – known for its culture and authentic experiences as well being a technically savvy destination,” said Milton Segarra, President& CEO, Meet Puerto Rico. “And we have learned that experiential travel is still important to groups and that brand identity is critical to the meeting planner’s perceptions about the value and experience of the destination. So, we concluded that now is the perfect time to capitalize and reinforce that improved branding and use it as a platform to help secure largeconvention center and city-wide groups. This new business model is an aggressive roadmap that will help us secure and reach those goals.”
Segarra went on to explain the three major changes:
1. Creation of National Sales Managers whose focus will be on securing large, city-wide and convention center groups. This will result in increased business to large and medium size hotels and supports the traditional sales model.
2. Branding – A team of Brand Sales Managers will seek traditional and creative opportunities in key markets, to increase visibility of Puerto Rico as THE destination for meetings and conventions. This will result in new qualified leads and demand.
3. The third, and final component, is strategic partnerships. Meet Puerto Rico will work closely with members and new business partners to formulate creative programs to generate demand and increase the closing ratio for the destination. For example, the Ambassadors Program will be re-launched with a new approach to incorporate social and business organizations or individuals who can be a go-to resource for the organization to access when a particular expertise is needed with potentialniche groups interested in Puerto Rico.
The new business model will be implemented in phases, starting with a transition period from January to June 2015 and full implementation by July 2015.
The new model has been in development for several months and was adopted after much research and consultation with various industry experts and studies, including the Destination Next Study by the Destination Marketing Association (DMAI), Meet Puerto Rico’s Customer Advisory Board (CAB) and local hospitality industry leaders.
“We are excited to implement this new 360 approach whose components will increase our opportunities to market the destination as never before,” concluded Segarra.
Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network where she is the Editor-in Chief. She is also responsible for the daily operation and the financial policy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales.
She has many years of both academic and industrial experience within the travel industry. She has written/edited numerous articles in various tourism magazines.
