AD

AD

If you are not Puerto Rican and somehow haven’t heard the song, “Despacito” is a sultry dance tune by island natives Daddy Yankee and Luis Fonsi, with a remix featuring a couple of verses by Bieber. It is the first Spanish-language song since “La Macarena” to top Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. It’s mostly about taking your time to enjoy being seduced. Nothing too serious — no next-level Ismael Rivera or Bob Dylan-style lyrics.

But I’ll admit: It’s catchy. As I watched, incredulous, as the stories about it filled my Facebook and Twitter feeds, I wondered: Could “Despacito” be more than just a song? Could reggaeton, so vilified in the past as the downfall of Puerto Rico’s rich musical tradition, now have saved us all? Could Bieber be so famous that he could reverse historic trends in tourism and persuade people to visit the Caribbean in the late spring and summer, a time when gringos usually melt in the humidity? Could a song that is almost completely in Spanish have that kind of power — now, in President Trump’s America?

AD

AD

From what I could tell, this all started with one story from an Argentine news service with some numbers from Hotels.com claiming that “interest” in tourism to Puerto Rico is up 45 percent because of the song. And in our it’s-better-to-be-first-than-right news environment, that was enough. El Nuevo Día, the biggest Spanish-language daily in San Juan, picked up the Argentine story. Fonsi posted on Instagram what he read in the San Juan paper. Billboard and UPROXX got into the act, writing stories off that Instagram post, and as the stories went viral, each new headline made the Puerto Rico tourist “boom” sound even better. And no one stopped to question the facts.

A long time ago, my father, a retired reporter who covered the island for decades and witnessed all its beautiful chaos and contradictions, gave me some great advice as I was starting out as a journalist: If something sounds too good to be true, he said, it usually is.

This is one of those cases. How can I be sure? I looked up the monthly hotel occupancy rates in Puerto Rico compiled by the island government’s Instituto de Estadísticas. I compared some of the months since the song has been out (February to May of this year) to the same months in 2016. No 45 percent change. I also saw an article about the challenges that tourism to the island has faced in 2017, including the fact that the Puerto Rico Tourism Company’s income from taxes on hotel rooms was down 15 percent in January, down 21 percent in February and down 2 percent in May, all lower than the year before. (There was, however, an increase in June of 5.4 percent.)

AD

AD

I also contacted the Puerto Rico Tourism Company. While its executive director, José Izquierdo, confirmed that the number of searches for Puerto Rico is up on online travel sites, he offered no hard figures on whether more people have actually visited the island since the song has topped the charts. He was, however, quite enthusiastic about the sunny picture painted by the claims of the song’s impact: “The Tourism Company is exploring ways to celebrate the success of the song to continue to inspire interest and curiosity in Puerto Rico as a world-class destination,” Izquierdo said.

Y colorín colorado, este cuento se ha acabado. (And that’s all she wrote.)

I’m not going to say all these stories that made “interest in travel” into an economic miracle are fake news. I’ve decided to chalk it up to wishful thinking. As anyone who knows Puerto Rico is aware, stranger things have happened. Ask any native islander about el chupacabra or the OVNI (flying saucer) invasions from time to time. The island is often (mostly affectionately, though not always) compared to Macondo, the magically realistic city of Gabriel García Márquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” and maybe there was a collective hope for some good old-fashioned Latin American magical realism to get the island out of the horrible economic mess it’s in.

AD

AD

What’s more likely, though, is that there was a great-sounding story with a great headline and wonderful click potential, so everybody ran with it, and it all happened a little too fast, or demasiado rapidito.

We’re now so plugged in to so many things that we’d be smart to listen to a very sage piece of usually unsolicited advice often given to first-time visitors on the island. “Cógelo con calma.” Take it easy. Try not to rush everything all the time. Read the whole story before hitting “share”; produce and consume media at a more reasonable pace, a little more

des

pa