Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Icans in race for Cuban magic
Lifting the 53-year US embargo on trade is opening new opportunities in the ‘time-capsule’ nation
the island. Still, the December announcement appears to have sparked an influx of tourism.
InsightCuba, the tour operator based in New Rochelle, New York, is adding excursions as its monthly bookings explode compared with early last year. “It’s a huge surge,” company president Tom Popper said. “Word’s gotten out and people are communicating that they want to go before Cuba changes.”
Already this year, more foreigners are roaming the cobblestoned streets of Old Havana.
Tourism is one of the main engines that has kept Cuba’s economy sputtering along. Last year, the country welcomed 3 million visitors, a record.
About 600 000 US travellers are estimated to visit Cuba each year, most of them Cuban-Americans visiting family but also tens of thousands coming on approved cultural, religious and educational exchanges.
An untold number of others have, for years, skirted travel restrictions by journeying through third countries such as the Bahamas or Mexico.
Cuban officials estimate that 1.5 million Americans would travel here annually if all restrictions were removed, supplanting Canada as the No 1 source of tourism.
However, the island is hardly ready for a Yankee invasion. Already it strains to accommodate travellers during the DecemberApril high season.
Tourists trying to dine at expensive private restaurants are often struggling to find an empty table these days, and it’s practically impossible to get a room at Havana’s best hotels.
Some travel agents report being turned away when trying to book group reservations.
Rogelio Gauvin, a tourist from Canada, predicts demand will continue to outpace capacity. “I see a lot of construction, very nice restorations – that’s very good. But there won’t be enough services to accom- modate the Americans who will come like rats on a ship.”
Privately run B&Bs and diners that have mushroomed under President Raul Castro’s economic reforms could help ease the load on the government’s 64 000 hotel rooms and poorly stocked restaurants.
Several US airlines have talked of launching services to the island; currently all US-Cuba flights are operated by charter companies. Canada- based Cuba Cruise has begun marketing its sea voyages directly to Americans.
Travel agents that have been doing business here for years are aware that the competition is about to get a lot stiffer. Carlos Javier Rodriguez, head of Argentina-based tour operator Carimar Eventos, expressed hope that Cuba would reserve some quota of capacity for non-US travellers. “We tour operators,” he said, “can say that we view the arrival of American tourism with trepidation.”
Carmenate, the university student and tour guide, said Cubans eagerly await change but won’t allow their country to become the capitalist playground it was before the 1959 revolution.
Thomas Mieszkowski, a 28-yearold tourist from Leeds, England, however, was among the visitors taking in the experience of seeing Cuba now – before it risks becoming “another outpost of Florida”. – AP