Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
No rush to Cuba
The death of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro does not appear to have sparked tourism.
While it’s unclear what implications former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro’s death and the upcoming inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will have for futuretravel to Cuba, for now it’s mostly business as usual, South Florida industry specialists say.
In the days since Castro’s death Nov. 25, there’s been little evidence of major ripple effects in demand for Cuba travel, according to longtime sellers of trips to the Communist-led island.
“There’s really no difference in business,” said Tessie Aral, president of ABC Charters in Miami, whose company has operated charter flights to Cuba for 20 years but is shifting its focus in the wake of recent trends.
ABC Charters is now focused on selling the slew of regularly scheduled flights to Cuba that have been launching since late August as part of the Obama administration’s efforts to normalize relations between the United States and Cuba, Aral said.
“[Tuesday] was our last charter flight,” she said. “We are doing groups, booking hotels and peopleto-people trips as well.”
Others agreed they haven’t seen immediate changes after Castro’s death.
“There’s no increase in travel demand that we can see, but it is high season and the holidays, so we are extremely busy,” said Vivian Mannerud, president and CEO of Airline Brokers Co. in Hialeah, a longtime seller of Cuba air charters that now also offers newly launched regular flights.
Carnival Corp.’s Fathom cruise brand, which began offering cruises in early May from Miami to Cuba, reported a boost in reservations last weekend but linked it to the Miami-based company’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions, a spokeswoman said.
Changes are afoot, however, starting next summer for Fathom, which was the first cruise operator to sail from a U.S. port to Cuba in decades. The line’s ship, the 704-passenger Adonia, will be returning to the fleet of its sister brand P&O Cruises (U.K.) for sailings in Europe starting in June 2017, according to a company statement.
“Fathom is continuing, but just in a different form, working through all our brands,” said Roger Frizzell, a Carnival Corp. spokesman. “We have requested approval from Cuba to sail there with our other brands beginning in June 2017. We plan to continue sailing to Cuba for many years to come, based on the success of our first cruises to the country, which have proven to be extremely successful.”
San Francisco-based, homesharing booking company Airbnb said it has seen rapid growth in the Cuba market since launching there in early 2015.
In fact, Cuba reportedly has been one of Airbnb’s fastest-growing markets in the past year, with more than 13,000 guests from the United States staying with its Cuban hosts in their personal homes, or “casas particulares.” As of March, there were nearly 4,000 Airbnb listed “casas” in Cuba, up from 1,000 when it debuted in 2015.
Overall, from April 2015 to March 2016, Airbnb has seen a 77 percent increase in American visits to Cuba and a 17 percent increase in all inbound travel to the island, the travel company said.
“It’s way too soon, unfortunately, for the data to show any meaningful effect” on bookings after the recent news, said Benjamin Breit, Airbnb’s press secretary for Florida on Tuesday. “We would need a month before our research team is comfortable drawing any conclusions.”
While Castro’s death doesn’t appear to be having significant impact on travel demand to Cuba, it did result in some airlines toning down celebrations for their new Havana flights that launched this week.
Delta decided to nix the entertainment it had planned for its new scheduled Miami-to-Havana nonstop daily service, an MIA airport spokesman said. The Miami flight, which departed early Thursday, was the first of three new regular scheduled routes that launched that day to Havana, as Delta resumed flights to the Cuban capital after a 55-year hiatus, the Atlantabased carrier said.
On Thursday, Spirit started its new twice-daily nonstop service between Fort Lauderdale and Havana with less fanfare as well, spokesman Stephen Schuler said.
“We’ve decided to tone things down a bit out of respect for recent events,” Schuler in an email. The airline offered Cuban coffee and pastries at the gate for the inaugural flight, but he said it would be “limiting the celebration side of things.”
JetBlue’s inaugural event on Wednesday, for its first scheduled flight from Fort Lauderdale to Havana, was missing the usual live Cuban band, dancing and decorated “new destination” cake that have been typical mainstays of the airline’s other recent Cuba route launches.
Instead, passengers and employees were treated to traditional fare including Cuban coffee and pastries as they waited for Flight 1499 to leave Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport for Havana’s Jose Marti International Airport.
“Obviously, we’d like to think about the citizens of Cuba and the emotions that they are experiencing over the last week,” said Jason Annunziata, JetBlue’s director of airport operations at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood during inaugural remarks.
“It’s a pretty historic event today, our first [regular] flight to Havana,” added Mark Gale, the aviation director and CEO for the Broward County Aviation Department. “Obviously, there are a lot of emotions that come with today with the current events that are happening in Cuba, and we certainly want to respect that.”
“We’ve decided to tone things down a bit out of respect for recent events.” Spirit Airlines spokesman Stephen Schuler