MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Paraguay to celebrate Labor Day on May 2 to boost tourism

President Abdo explained the change would generate a substantial income for the travel and hotel industries

Paraguayan authorities have decided the May 1 Labor Day holiday will be celebrated Monday, May 2, in a move to boost tourism as the activity strives to bounce back from two years of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, President Mario Abdo Benítez announced Tuesday.

The measure was well received on social media, where people had campaigned for this change with the hashtag #feriadodelagente (the people's holiday), which was a word game from how Abdo usually refers to himself: “Marito de la Gente.”

Abdo also explained that the change would generate a substantial income for the travel and hotel industries.

Tourism Minister Sofia Montiel de Afara, said that moving the Labor Day holiday to Monday will benefit all sectors and tourism is expected to follow on its recovery path recorded during Easter Week.

“The news is extremely positive and encouraging,” Montiel told reporters. She also underlined the progress achieved during the recent religious holiday.

“With the movement that was generated in Easter Week we are talking about more than US$ 82 million,” the minister said. “There was a massive displacement of Paraguayan families to the interior or to the capital of the country,” she added.

“The economy of the sector is reactivated when the Government takes the initiative to move the holidays,” she pointed out.

Labor Day is celebrated May 1 as a tribute to the Chicago martyrs, a group of trade unionists who were executed in 1886 in the United States for demanding an eight-hour workday.