Puerto Rico needs to look to the future

Puerto Rico needs to look to the future right now.
I am very grateful to the Puerto Rico Convention Bureau for inviting me to the keynote speaker at yearly convention of COCAL 2010 held at the Sheraton Hotel across the Puerto Rico Convention Center last week.
COCAL means Confederacion de Entidades Organizadoras de Congresos y Afines de America Latina, a rather long name better remembered by its letters.
There were about 120 delegates from 17 countries, enthusiastic, forward looking people that want to expand their knowledge of how better serve companies, associations, hotels, really, anyone that is interested in holding meetings or conventions anywhere in the world.
I must congratulate The Puerto Rico Convention Bureau, headed by that wonderful, beautiful, intelligent lady, Ana Maria Viscasillas, for being able to bring this convention to Puerto Rico. I don’t think it was an easy task and they were able to do it.
Let’s just for a minute analyze what kind of an impact could an event like this have.
For starters, just having over a hundred people that do these kind of events, get familiar with the facilities we have in Puerto Rico, the amazing Convention Center, the fine hotels, restaurants, beautiful beaches, the amazing old San Juan and many more attractions, represents business opportunities that would never happen if these delegates had not come here and seen with their own eyes what we have.
I was able to interact with many of the delegates since I attended the closing dinner event, which by the way, had excellent food and terrific bands with most of the delegates dancing away the night.
They were ecstatic about what Puerto Rico had to offer. They loved everything, the people, the food, the conference, the hotel, the speakers, etc. so to them, having spent the money needed to attend one of these conventions, was well worth it.
One of the interesting points that came up in this convention was the fact that we must not only look north to the US as our main source of events and conventions but also to the rest of the world and more importantly to Latin America.
Think about this, we are the only, I repeat, the only country, island, commonwealth, territory, whatever you want to call it, it doesn’t matter, that has the Latin flavor with the security, the guarantees that the United States offers. We are the best of both worlds. Yes, we have limitations also, but the pale with the advantages that we offer.
I know that we all have been reading the papers and watching the news and crime is something that is worrying lots of us. But, let me tell you, compared with the cities in the countries that visited us here for COCAL, our crime situation is not bad at all.
For example, a Mexican gentleman asked me if I knew how many people were killed in Mexico due only to the fight against trafficking and drugs. I gave him a high number but not high enough. 143,000 killed including innocent bystanders that were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I asked him if he had an armored car to protect himself. He said that having an armored car was worse than not having one. I asked him why?
He said that since crooks spend all their time just thinking how to screw other people, how to hurt them, how to get away with it, they figured a way to be able to get to the people that have armored cars.
He said that he had a friend that had one of those armored cars and was blocked by two cars, one in front and one behind, when they tried to assault him. He had the false security of having a level five armored car, a term used in Mexico to describe the highest level of security possible with one of such cars. So, when he had two of the guys with their guns standing by the door telling him to get out of the car, he smiled and with his finger said, “oh no, I am not getting out and I have an armored car, so sorry for you”.
The criminal said to him to get out, because if he had to get him out, he would really be sorry he hadn’t opened the door. The guy smiled and said, “Buddy, I am not getting out”.
Suddenly, out of the car, one guy brings out a big mandarria, a big hammer, and the guy hit the front fender with full force. The air bags opened and the locks in the car popped up.
The bad guys opened the door, pulled the guy out and proceeded to break every single bone he had in his body. They didn’t kill him; they just hurt him so bad that he will never be healthy again.
I opened my speech with an African folk tale: Every morning, a gazelle wakes and thinks. “To stay alive, I will have to run faster than the fastest lion”. There is always a significant incentive for gazelles (and small countries) to learn to run faster.
Just over the hill, on the other side, a lion realizes, “I have to run faster than the slowest gazelle, or I will go hungry.” Even lions (if they get lazy or if gazelles get smarter) can starve and so can great empires.
Many countries, regions, and people learn the consequences of this story the hard way.
Three quarters of the flags, borders, anthems and moneys represented at the United Nations today did not exist fifty years ago. Countries are falling apart at an unprecedented rate because governments and citizens don’t understand what this simple African story communicates.
Even in the United States, after a period of unprecedented growth and technological leadership, our financial situation is right now under great danger.
In Puerto Rico, it is even much worse. We have a much higher unemployment than any other state and our people who have lost their jobs, will find it impossible to catch up in a rapidly changing economy and the opening of jobs that they don’t have the training for.
When a country or region is consumed by internal political battles and ignores the need to educate its people, be up to date in the latest technologies and concentrates its efforts in becoming more competitive world wide, that country will become irrelevant and its people will suffer the punishment of unemployment, poor health care and an increase in crime and vandalism.
I do hope that our leaders in Puerto Rico understand that our future and that of our children and grandchildren depend on understanding a global economy driven by technology, innovation and highly educated people. And one way to take advantage of the global economy is to develop our tourism and even industry.
The budget must be found to assign more money to the tourism department and to the PR Convention Bureau, to attract tourists and events from Latin America, Europe and Asia, and not only depend on our uncle up north.