By Carola Rico
We are in the third month of the year, about to enjoy the Easter and Easter holidays. But we must be aware that the pandemic that paralyzed the entire world is not over yet. In this installment on the 2022 economic outlook, the businessmen interviewed agree that we need to train for the new normality, while remaining professional and providing the best service wherever we are.
Don Jorge Olalde, a hotel entrepreneur from San Miguel, shares his opinion: “We are just about to celebrate two years since all our activities in every aspect changed radically, with the consequences that we know in health, economy, education, and in the personal realm. A destination like San Miguel de Allende, dedicated in an important way to hospitality and its derivations, like any destination, has suffered the consequences; there is no doubt about what has happened to us. Mexico and the world environment is not exempt from risks, and we are facing a complex 2022 economically. Gradually the economic activities in San Miguel have been reactivated with all the secondary aspects, and that is already an advantage. From my personal point of view, this is a great moment in terms of effective economic reactivation, for San Miguel, because the activities generated at the end of last year once again encouraged and gave indications of what may come.
“Any line of business requires labor, this is a good opportunity to generate activities that will make it possible to improve the social welfare of our population with employment options, where each branch or commercial activity provides job opportunities for the good of our social environment. Better times are in sight. This will undoubtedly be an incentive for companies, for businesses, for our workforce, for the local economy. We must learn from what we have experienced; the past year presented great opportunities to get ahead in San Miguel de Allende, which we need a lot. For this we need the will and participation of all. Private initiative, authorities from various levels of government, and a unified work. Let us remember that no one is better than all of them together. Better times must surely come.”
Arturo Morales Tirado (on the featured image), President of the Association of Authorized Guides of San Miguel de Allende and Vice President Councilor of CANACO SERVYTUR in the area of tourism, stated: “The economic crisis caused by COVID-19 since the end of of 2021, has seriously hit tourism in our city, since many of us had to stop these activities since March 2020. They restarted a little more regularly towards the end of the year, and since 2021 we saw some of a reactivation with a positive view. We are serving foreign tourism and having a destination like San Miguel de Allende helps us a lot because we are already beginning to distinguish ourselves from the great and aggressive competition that we have at the global and national levels.
“There are challenges as entrepreneurs as tour operators, accredited guides, and in general. Each of those who play a role in tourism, value the chain and also having in context. The tourism council has been dissolved. For 15 years it was cognizant of tourism activities in a collegiate way, now it is will join the new promotion campaign that our current municipal president is proposing.
“The second challenge as businessmen is to try to group ourselves in unions and in chambers that represent us in order not only to join the tourism promotion campaigns. Most importantly, to manage a type of tourism—not the one we want, but that the world is demanding. The new tourists in the world, and in the country, necessitate trying to make tourism different, with quality of services a fundamental part. How? By having continuous and high-quality training that translates into the best professional practices.
“Understand that if we want to get out of this economic decline that we have had in the last three years, we have to have high quality services, and be highly trained. We are currently doing it through virtual courses, and we are joining the direction of Economic Development of the municipality. We must be innovative in tourism services, without forgetting our great and deep cultural heritage of more than 2,500 years. We have in an authentic, unique and incomparable city such as San Miguel de Allende. We now need to keep people in mind, both tourists and those of us who live in this wonderful destination; and we should also think about our planet and the environmental challenges.”
Mr. José Luis Vargas, is a lawyer and is originally from San Miguel. He says that the COVID-19 pandemic has not really impacted him very much, because legal services and the law had to continue their course. Only a few changes in the way of working had to be implemented.
Mr. Vargas explained that legal services depend on people having money. If there is no economy and movement of capital, people do not have the resources to hire legal services unless it is a criminal matter. Then they do have to hire the services of an attorney to represent them or assist them in their legal problems. He says that now that public spaces have been reopened, they can fully exercise their own legal activities. In times of confinement and quarantine, he said, legal activity was adjusted to digital platforms and litigation matters were requested through appointments. It took longer, especially civil matters, such as divorces or compliance with contracts. The pace of work did slow down, but appointments were not canceled and activities were scheduled digitally and remotely.
However, Mr. Vargas pointed out that this pandemic and the contingency helped the professionals in the field by giving them more time to prepare. Lawyers had no other option but to wait for their time and this helped them to calmly review the legal incidents in terms of constitutional and human rights changes. He stressed that San Miguel lawyers must be continually updated. It is always good to provide better services and also there are more professionals in the field.
