Cuban Colada

Travel agents are wooed by Cuban officials

Major U.S. travel operators gathered in a downtown Washington hotel Wednesday to listen to a pitch for business from Cuban government officials, who appeared on a giant screen via the Internet from Havana to tout the island.
The meeting came as travel companies eagerly eye congressional efforts to lift the restrictions that prohibit most Americans from traveling to Cuba.
The operators watched promotional videos of tourists frolicking in the surf, lounging on the beaches and exploring Old Havana. They asked Cuban officials when they would be ready for what the president of the U.S. Tour Operators Association, Bob Whitley, called a "mass rush" of American tourists, should the ban be scrapped. Whitley's group sponsored the event, along with the National Tour Association.
"We are ready the first minute," Miguel Figueras Pérez, an official of the Cuban Ministry of Tourism, told the group. "Let us know, please."
Figueras said Cuba had built more than 100 hotels in the last two decades, as tourist arrivals jumped 11 percent each year. He noted, however, that it took the island 30 years to get back to the volume it had enjoyed before Washington broke off relations with Cuba in 1961.
Figueras said Cuba planned to build 30 more hotels with 10,000 rooms over the next five years, but he acknowledged the island needs more golf courses.
To read more about the promotion, click here. (PHOTO SHOWS tourists in Old Havana.)
–LESLEY CLARK.

Vietnam gives Cuban Customs new gear

A news item in Wednesday's Granma said that Nguyen Duong Thai, deputy director of the Vietnamese Customs Department, had donated to the Cuban Customs Administration 50 computers and 11 printers "to potentiate the computerized development of Cuban Customs, for the purpose of safeguarding the integrity and security of our borders."
In recognition of the gift, Gen. Pedro Ramón Pupo Pérez, the Cuban Customs chief, gave his Vietnamese counterpart a diploma.
Let's see if the donated equipment will detect the future introduction into Cuba of "cellphones, laptop computers and other communications equipment" similar to the ones that, according to the New York Times and other Washington sources, were being distributed to unidentified Cubans by an also unidentified American tourist, before his arrest on Dec. 5.
The man was later described as "a subcontractor" thrice or four-times removed from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), whose avowed goal is "to hasten the peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba."
How he managed to slip all that electronic equipment past Customs at the Havana airport is, as the song lyrics go, "a puzzlement."
As of early Wednesday, Dec. 16, no new developments on the matter had been reported from either Washington or Havana. To keep up with the news, read The Miami Herald. To catch up on Cuban Customs regulations, click here.
–Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Newspapers disagree on benefits of travel

Two diametrically opposed editorials appeared Friday in newspapers in Canada and the U.S.
• Under the headline "Don't Go to Cuba," The National Post of Canada tells tourists that Cuba is "a nation where the worst excesses of authoritarianism remain as entrenched as ever."
The Post cites the recently released Human Rights Watch poll as it remarks that "in Raúl's Cuba, as in Fidel's, unemployment is considered antisocial and the government can lock away anyone a summary trial finds guilty of 'dangerousness,' a legal catch-all.
"Once incarcerated, political prisoners are denied medical care, family visits and legal aid," The Post goes on. "Solitary confinement is a common and seemingly arbitrary form of discipline." And the editorial concludes: "Canadians should not be subsidizing this tyranny – directly or indirectly. If you want sun, try Miami, the Dominican Republic or St. Lucia. Don't go to Cuba." (For full text, click here.)
• Under the headline "Cuba's Isolation Begets Abuses," The Boston Globe editorial board states that "the fundamental fallacy underlying U.S. policy toward Cuba is that isolation forces transformation. The most glaring proof that the 50-year embargo has failed is that the Cuban regime remains profoundly repressive."
The Globe also cites the HRW's condemnation of the Castro government but comes to a different conclusion.
"As more Americans enter Cuba, so, too, will information and ideas that foster dissent and that undermine Castro’s ability to use the United States as a scapegoat for his repressive policies. And when the United States lifts the embargo – a policy that hurts Cuba’s poor and makes the island appear a victim of a rich, bullying neighbor – it will gain the credibility in Latin America to negotiate the release of Cuba’s political prisoners.
"If the repressive Cuban regime is to come to an end, it will not be through isolation, but through exposure to the ideals and virtues of free societies. Congress should act now on [the] proposal to lift the travel ban and promote progress in Cuba. It should be a first step toward eliminating the embargo, a damaging policy that has never borne its intended result." (For full text, click here.)
–Renato Pérez Pizarro, with thanks to Juan O. Tamayo.

Aeroflot monopolizes Russia-Cuba flights

The Russian charter airline Transaero is giving up its Moscow-to-Varadero route and turning its attention to the Dominican Republic, reports Tourdom.ru, a Russian website that covers the tourism industry. That means Aeroflot gets the island all to itself.
Transaero entered the Cuban circuit 2006, flying to Varadero every fall and winter, but halted its flights last February. This week, it announced it would not resume them. An unidentified travel expert quoted by Tourdom attributed the decision to the strong competition posed by Aeroflot, Russia's national airline, and said that the two airlines had agreed to split "the sphere of influence in the Caribbean -- Transaero gets the Dominican [Republic]; Aeroflot gets Cuba."
As a result, Aeroflot plans to increase the frequency of its flights to Havana, from its usual four times a week, Oct. 26-Dec. 25, to five times a week, Dec. 26 until March, using Airbus A-300 (see photo) and Boeing 767 aircraft.
The Cuban Ministry of Tourism is predicting a 10-percent increase in tourist travel from Russia this year. Last year, 40,500 Russian tourists visited the island, Tourdom said.
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.

More Cubans flock to once-banned resorts

National Public Radio has cast an eye on an aspect of Cuba's tourism industry that few media in the U.S. have explored -- tourism by Cubans.
Raúl Castro last year ended the practice of banning ordinary Cubans from tourist hotels, and the effect this year has been spectacular. "Dozens of tour buses packed with Cuban vacationers are pouring daily into Varadero," NPR says. "For less than 200 dollars per person, Cubans can buy a weeklong, all-inclusive package and finally claim their places in the sand alongside budget-minded Europeans and Canadians."
Cuban-Americans returning to the island to visit relatives are paying for much of the expense, NPR notes. "Now, Cuba's tourist resorts are playing host to large family reunions."
An article in the e-zine Progreso Weekly reports that "Varadero this year has been a summer apocalypse. Cubans who receive remittances from overseas [...] have taken over the famous resort. They've descended like locusts on the hotels with the all-inclusive fares and the Swedish smorgasbord tables."
Despite the surge in activity, Cuba's tourism industry is not bringing in as much hard currency as expected. In a speech Aug 1, Castro said that "tourism faces the paradox that, despite the fact that we welcomed 2.9 percent more visitors so far this year, the revenues decrease" because of a decline in the exchange rate of the dollar. "In short, more tourists but less revenue." 
To read the NPR story, click here; for the Progreso story, click here. An update from Reuters can be accessed here. (PHOTO SHOWS: Varadero Beach.) 
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Air Italy now flies Rome-Milan-Havana

A Boeing 767 of Air Italy arrived Friday night in Havana with more than 200 passengers, initiating weekly service -- every Friday -- between Rome and Havana, with a stopover in Milan. The airline used to fly charter planes to Cuba from third countries in eastern Europe, such as Poland, Radio Habana says.
With 130,000 travelers a year, Italy is the third-largest originator of tourism to Cuba, behind Canada (first) and Britain, the radio station says.
Air Italy is an economy airline founded in May 2005, with hubs in Verona, Turin and Milan. Its fleet consists of 10 Boeings, according to industry sources.

Cubana starts London-to-Holguín route

Cubana de Aviación this week will inaugurate a new route: London-Holguín-Havana, Radio Rebelde announced.
Holguín, on the island's eastern end, about 500 miles from Havana, is a major tourist destination.
The airline will use Ilyushin-96 aircraft with capacity for 258 passengers. Flight frequency will be weekly, every Wednesday. For details from Radio Rebelde, click here.

Cuba is ready for U.S. tourists, official says

If Congress allows the unrestricted travel of Americans to Cuba, Cuba will be ready, a Tourism Ministry adviser says.
Interviewed in Havana by the Bloomberg news agency, Miguel Figueras said about 835,000 Americans would flock to the island every year after the travel ban is lifted -- a number that doesn't include cruise-ship tourists and Cuban-Americans returning to their homeland for family visits.
Cuba is preparing to build 30 new hotels with 10,000 rooms and 10 golf courses within the next five years, regardless of any changes in U.S. policy, Figueras told Bloomberg.
"The Americans are welcome here," he said. "You have to be prepared for [the influx] but you can't make your development plans depend on whether" the ban is lifted.
Tourism provides 7 percent of Cuba's GDP, according to Figueras, who added that revenue increased 11 percent to $1.8 billion last year. He said talks between U.S. and Cuban tourism developers are already under way.
"Every month an American company comes," he said. To read the Bloomberg item, click here. [RELATED NEWS: The Tourism Ministry is sending a promotional caravan to Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Peru to whip up business. Click here.]
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Jamaica wary of U.S. tourism flow to Cuba but is taking steps to share in the bonanza

A lifting of the U.S. travel ban on Cuba is viewed by the Jamaican tourism industry "with fortune and fear."
"There are fears that, once the market fully opens to Americans, Jamaica will see a drop in its visitors," says an article Wednesday in The Jamaica Observer. The newspaper quotes two American specialists on Cuba -- Daniel Erikson of the Inter-American Dialogue, and Sarah Stephens of the Center for Democracy in the Americas -- as predicting that Washington will end the travel ban before the end of this year.
Both were in Kingston last week for a conference on Caribbean studies.
"It's possible by September or October that Congress will lift the travel ban for all Americans to Cuba," Stephens told The Observer. [...] That can happen and part of the reason is that it is in Congress' hands, and they want to do it."
Erikson likens the lifting of the ban to a "thread [...] If you pull it, it can unravel the whole sweater."
"Realistically, there will be a curiosity factor," said Anne Crick, head of tourism management at the University of the West Indies. "So everyone will be interested in Cuba at first and I suspect that, in the short term, there will be a fallout" in the Jamaican hospitality business. But, she added, "we are positioning ourselves so that we have a fighting chance."
Competition can also mean collaboration, said John Lynch, the government's director of tourism. "For the past year and a half, Jamaica has been in discussions with Cuba to explore the possibilities of dual destination strategies," he said. "Flights already operate between Jamaica and Cuba." To read more on Jamaica's travel strategy, click here.
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Trade-and-service provider to be closed

CUBALSE, Cuba's main supplier of goods and services to foreign residents, tourists and diplomats, will be terminated by late August, The Associated Press reported, citing an unpublished decree from the Council of Ministers.
"With the objective of reducing costs, increasing the power of negotiation, concentrating the work of the entities that furnish services, and achieving greater efficiency and dependability, it becomes necessary to shut down the enterprise," the decree says, according to the AP.
The decree, dated May 26, says that the liquidation of CUBALSE and the transfer of its activities and goods to other state-run companies must be completed within 90 days. Its gasoline stations will be turned over to Cuba Petróleos, while its restaurant services and car providers will go to the CIMEX Corporation.
Real-estate rental offices and the agencies that provide employees for foreigners will go to Palace of Conventions Enterprises. Wholesale merchandisers will be handled by Almacenes Universales.
CUBALSE, short for Cuba al Servicio del Extranjero (Cuba at the Service of Foreigners), was established in 1974 from what had been the Service Enterprise for the Diplomatic Corps. For its official mission statement, click here.
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.