“Today we have a surfer president,” wrote a Salvadoran under the retweet of ISA President Fernando Aguerre, who congratulated his Salvadoran counterpart, the young Nayib Bukele.

The leader, who took office just over 100 days ago, has made a lot of noise in the local and now global surfing world. It was reported a couple of weeks ago on DUKE that the SUP World Championship will be in the Central American country and the final stage of ALAS as well.

In a presentation to the press that was shared by Bukele himself on Twitter, he explained the reasons why he has decided to carry out the Surf City project, which he has expressed aims to develop the sport in his country, in all its aspects, from the federative to the touristic.

A journalist asked him specifically about the fact that the United States improved the country's rating in terms of security, and Bukele said the following:

“We talked about it with President Trump”
The reality is that this is a virtuous circle. We even talked about the Surf City project with President Trump. I told him that we have some of the best beaches in the world for surfing, and he asked me if we had the infrastructure. I told him yes, that we had very good infrastructure for a certain type of tourist, but we want to build better infrastructure. We need to have drinking water, water sanitation, etc., a constant and stable level of energy supply, a very high level of internet connectivity so that five, six, seven star hotels will come and tourists will spend more.

Even in the Surf City project we had divided, so as not to lose the beauty of surfing, to also have the side of classic tourism and the side of professional tourism in the case of sport, surfing is being supported a lot, the surf federation that was practically abandoned was supported, we have already had medal winners, we are beginning to have Salvadoran figures who are beginning to be seen and mentioned in the world.

We are going to have two world surfing tournaments here in El Salvador (sic) this year, we are going to do ten, but these are two world tournaments, that is, endorsed by the International Surfing Association and endorsed by the global surfing community.

The advantages of El Salvador over California
A delegation from the California government came to El Salvador to help us, since they have a lot of experience in surfing there and they came to support us in building our tourism industry. One of the things they told me was told to me by the director, who is the president of Visit California, who is the head of the California tourism agency, and she told me, obviously relative to size, because California would be the fifth largest economy in the world if it were a country, she told me that we are even going to have more advantages than them, first of all, because we have 12 months of water that can be used, they have 6 months that can be used by everyone and then another 6 months that can be used only by professionals accustomed to cold waters, but in the case of El Salvador, there are 12 months that the beaches can be used, the waves are Point Break, they are continuous, it has some of the best beaches for surfing in the world and it is gaining a name,

The Hawaiian model that Bukele seeks to repeat
El Salvador is already being heard around the world for its surfing and I think that is something that will not only boost us in terms of tourism, directly for surfers, but that will also generate a snowball of tourism, in the case of Hawaii for example, Hawaii started with surfing, in the case of the Big Kahunas, people, surfers went to Hawaii because there were some special waves that were only found there, but then Hawaii began to develop, industry, hotels, restaurants, etc. and now people go to Hawaii to get married, when they retire they go to Hawaii, people go to Hawaii and they don’t even know how to surf, they go and they don’t even think about surfing, they go for the lauau, they go for the flower necklace, etc. In other words, they go for things that have nothing to do with surfing, but the beginning, what started the tourism economy in Hawaii was surfing.

So, here in El Salvador, we have a lot of tourist attractions, our volcanoes, our towns, our archaeological sites, colonial sites, historic centers, but to attract a tourist from the United States or Europe, to come to El Salvador, it will be easier to bring them through a world-renowned brand, like Surf City, when it is world-renowned and that is what we are working on, to bring them to El Salvador and once here, they will surely want to go visit a town, go to lunch at the volcano, go out at night, eat at a restaurant in the city and since everything is close here, basically the tourist can be all over the country, they can go to Taco at night, they can go to lunch at the San Salvador volcano and surf in the morning at El Tunco.

“Surfing is going to bring that economic dynamism”
In short, surfing is going to bring that economic dynamism and there is a very interesting economic spillover, because unlike other sectors, such as finance, which is very good, tourism goes directly to the people. A tourist arrives at a hotel, and it can be a large chain or a small hostel, but immediately eats at the restaurant across the street, tips the waiter, the restaurant hires staff from the area, that is, there is a very fast economic spillover in the area of ​​tourism, in addition it is foreign currency that our country needs, but apart from that, it generates more and more economy.

Answering the question directly, I believe that this alert guarantees that the project can work, because, although we had the idea, we had the project, we had the work, we had a group of tourists who even dared to invest, there are already investments from some former tourists, now international investors in El Salvador, but we are building the necessary infrastructure so that there can be more investments, we are promoting the brand, the concept, the place, the destination...

But while that alert was issued and said “no, better not travel to El Salvador,” then most tourists would not come to El Salvador, there are other countries where you can surf. By removing this alert and being on alert number two, which is an alert that we share with most countries in the world that are considered stable, then tourists can come, it is no longer an additional risk, but rather they take the same risk that they would take by going to another country, so I think that what is happening, that the United States did not do it to help us with tourism, they did it for the security situation, but it will directly benefit tourism and obviously it will benefit the economy of El Salvador.

A journalist asked us if the lowering of the travel alert for our country, made by the United States Government, could benefit Surf City.

This was our response. pic.twitter.com/ns9b6FqGp5

- Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) October 7, 2019