Puerto Rico’s economy is getting a bump from Bad Bunny.
The award-winning Puerto Rican rapper’s three-month, 30-show concert series in San Juan is spurring a fan-fueled surge in the island’s economy at a time of year when tourism is usually slow.
During the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs June through November, tourism usually drops by 25 percent to 45 percent, and lodging prices fall by as much as 50 percent, according to the tourism agency Discover Puerto Rico. Tourism accounts for about 7 percent of Puerto Rico’s $114 billion economy.
Bad Bunny’s residency, which ends Sept. 14, is expected to draw an estimated 600,000 attendees and to have a direct economic impact of $250 million, according to Moody’s Analytics. It estimated that total spending, which includes purchases not directly related to shows, will top out at $400 million.
Bad Bunny’s home stay is ahead of an eight-month world tour beginning in December and comes on the heels of global mega-tours that have become a playbook for chart-topping artists. Taylor Swift’s Eras tour grossed more than $2 billion in ticket sales, and Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter tour brought in $407 million. Bad Bunny’s 2024 world tour took in $208 million.
Moody’s recently raised its 2025 economic forecast for Puerto Rico to 0.4 percent, from 0.3 percent, partly because of the residency. Jesse Rogers, the head of LatAm Economics at Moody’s Analytics, said if his team members were not Bad Bunny fans, “we would have probably missed this.”
“The bittersweet component is that this stimulus really isn’t going to last,” Mr. Rogers said. “You actually get a slightly slower growth in 2026 as that stimulus fades” and the temporary jobs sparked by the residency end.
Still, “there’s a genuine effort here to impact tourism,” Jorge Perez, who manages San Juan’s Coliseo de Puerto Rico José Miguel Agrelot, the 19,500-seat venue hosting the residency, said.
The series was, for its first nine nights, open only to residents; some 80,000 tickets, ranging from $35 to $250, were sold in eight hours, bringing in nearly $11 million in revenue. Another 400,000 tickets, available to the general public, sold out within four hours in January.
“We knew this would be big,” Alejandro Pabón, a partner and a promoter of Move Concerts, which produced the residency, said. “As soon as we got the dates for the venue, our next question was, ‘Will there be enough hotel rooms for something like this?’” Vibee, a Live Nation unit that coordinates hotel accommodations was brought in; the 34 hotels marketed with the residency sold out in 35 hours.
Revenue from short-term rentals in San Juan more than doubled from last year, according to AirDNA, which tracks short-term and vacation rentals globally.
“You see this kind of bump when it’s the Paris Olympics or the Super Bowl, but those are short stints,” Jamie Lane, chief economist at AirDNA, said. “This is the first time we’ve seen it consistently, in one city.”
When Tanya Orbera, who runs Real PR Travel, a vacation planning company, discovered that hotels were booking up fast, “I heard ‘cha-ching’ in my head.” she said. Ms. Orbera initially offered party-bus packages, with music and drinks, to shuttle concertgoers to shows. But sales were slow, so she began to offer the rides to anyone who wanted to go to the coliseum, where vendors are hosting booths and activities on show nights. “I think in this type of situation, you have to get in, get your dollars and be smart about the money you are going to make right now.” she said.
The neighborhood surrounding the coliseum is a bit of a tourism desert, a stretch of financial institutions and office buildings. When Camilo Pulido opened his men’s beachwear shop, Arrecife, there six years ago, the lack of foot traffic concerned him. But since Bad Bunny’s residency began, he said, he has seen an uptick in the number of American tourists visiting his store, and online sales have more than quadrupled, largely driven by U.S. orders in advance of shows.
“From January to June 2025, we generated the same revenue as we did in all of last year,” Mr. Pulido said. And while sales usually drop during hurricane season, this year, Mr. Pulido has hired four, part-time workers. “Before June,” he said, “there were only two employees.”
Discover Puerto Rico is leveraging the temporary swell of visiting fans and their dollars to highlight local businesses beyond the usual high-traffic areas, and culture, including classes in traditional bomba dance and tours of coffee farms. It is also marketing locally made goods, like residency-inspired swimwear created by Mr. Pulido’s company.
Rosa Torres Feliciano, the owner of Tía Cocina cafe near Guaynabo, just south of San Juan, created Instagram posts highlighting businesses she hopes concertgoers will patronize. “I think it’s a moment where we should all support each other and have more visibility,” Ms. Torres Feliciano said.
“I don’t pretend that everyone will come to my restaurant,” she said. “But I also enjoy knowing that you may come to my restaurant and tomorrow maybe you’ll go to my friend’s restaurant or go to another small business.”
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