Bad Bunny's star power explodes tourism searches for his hometown

A large number of eyeballs tuned in to Bad Bunny's performance at the Super Bowl halftime show, where he showcased several rich features of Puerto Rico, his hometown.

Now, a report in Billboard says there is a massive uptick in travel searches for his Caribbean island, a staggering 245% increase in flight searches.

But to be precise, if you look at the search results for Bunny's hometown, Vega Baja, it shows a whopping 1,450%.

But Puerto Rico is not alone. Other Latin American countries, similarly, recorded massive surges in flight searches. For example, Mexico recorded 210%, Brazil and Colombia recorded 120%, and Argentina recorded 70%.

The halftime show itself clocked in at 128.2 million viewers, making it the 4th-most-watched Super Bowl halftime show in history.

Yet, despite such an overwhelming response, there is still a segment that was not a fan of his performance. For example, Rep. Andy Ogles called for an inquiry into the National Football League and NBCUniversal for picking and showing the Grammy winner's performance.

But the former U.S. president Barack Obama hit back at such a view.

“It resonated. It was smart because it wasn’t preaching. It was showing. It was demonstrating and displaying: this is what a community is," he said while appearing on Brian Tyler Cohen's No Lie podcast.

“People who did not speak Spanish and have never been to Puerto Rico, they saw that elderly woman serving a drink, and the kids dancing with their grandmas," he noted.

"It was intergenerational and it was a reminder of what Dr. King called the beloved community’ can look like, which is not perfect and it’s messy sometimes," Obama concluded.