Investors see a future in golf

Apropos the International Tourism Fair being held in Havana, the Reuters news agency reminds us that golf is an attraction for foreign tourists anywhere. Investors from Canada and Europe hope that Raúl Castro will allow them to build courses near the beach resorts across the island, Reuters says, quoting former Canadian Ambassador Mark Entwistle (click here). "Old-school objections to golf on ideological grounds have fallen away," Entwistle told Reuters. Golf can develop for Cuba "a more sophisticated and repeat tourism beyond sun and sand," he added.
According to Entwistle, there are today at least 10 golf resort projects in the pipeline at various stages in the approval process. "Cuba has no choice but to build new golf courses if it wants to compete with other resorts in Mexico, Jamaica or the Dominican Republic, a smaller country that [...] has 22 golf courses," Reuters notes. [Photo above, showing Ernesto Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, was made in 1961 at the Colinas de Villarreal course as a publicity stunt.]
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.