New Cuba rules leave winners, losers
President Donald Trump’s new policy on Cuba travel has winners and losers: Group tour operators hope to sell more trips, but bed-and-breakfast owners in Cuba say they’re losing business.
Five of 12 private bed-and-breakfast owners in Havana and Cuba’s southern colonial city of Trinidad told The Associated Press they received cancellations after Trump’s June 16 announcement.
“It’s contradictory that (Trump) says he want to help civil society, the Cuban people, but what he’s doing is hurting them, hurting bed-and-breakfast owners in this case,” said Tony Lopez, who rents rooms for $30-$50 nightly in a three-bedroom, 16th-floor apartment in Havana’s trendy Vedado neighborhood. Those canceling included two Americans worried about legal requirements, including documenting their spending.
“We get a lot of Americans. We’re alarmed,” said Eliset Ruiz, manager of a nine-room bed-and-breakfast in Trinidad. “We’ve had a lot of cancellations for June and July.”
Alex Bunten of Charlotte, Vt., hoped to go to Cuba with his girlfriend in August “without the hassle of tour groups and schedules and such. We like watching the world go by, eating good food, not being herded by an umbrella-holding, annoyingly interesting
tour guide.”
But Bunten nixed the idea because under the new rules, only licensed tour operators can take Americans to Cuba on “people-to-people” trips. That’s “too much of a hassle,” Bunten said.
Tour operators “should be opening Champagne” because of the new policy, said John Caulfield, former chief of mission of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana and co-founder of the nonprofit Innovadores Foundation, which seeds innovation in Cuba.
In theory, the new rules should spur “an increase in demand,” said Access Trips CEO Tamar Lowell. But some
Americans “will be confused by the new policy,” wrongly assuming all Cuba travel is now off-limits.
“The travel operators are going to have to do some work to make people aware that if you go with us, it’s OK,” said Caulfield.
“Are we going to see business fall off?” said Classic Journeys President Edward Piegza. “We could. But it could be good for us.”
The new rules also ban Americans from doing business with entities controlled by Cuban military and intelligence agencies, including some 50 hotels.