US travel industry eyes up Cuba as Congress debates lifting ban

TRENDS:THE US TRAVEL industry is gearing up for a return to what was its largest Caribbean destination before Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution. Tour operators held a video conference with Cuban tourism officials in Havana on Wednesday and asked them if they were ready for the "rush" of Americans if the US ban on travel to Cuba is lifted as proposed by legislation currently before the US Congress.

It may be too soon for Americans to plan a Cuban vacation of beach, mambo and mojitos but they are apparently eager to visit: “Americans really want to see Cuba,” said Robert Whitley, president of the US Tour Operators Association, which with the US National Tour Association handles 75 per cent of all American package tour business to the Caribbean.

“We predict that at least 850,000 Americans will go to Cuba in the first year,” Whitley said. That does not include an estimated 480,000 Americans who will go to Cuba on Caribbean cruises when US ships are allowed to dock there, and another 480,000 Cuban-Americans visiting family in Cuba each year, a Cuban official said.

Travel from Ireland to Cuba has fallen by around 25 per cent in the past year along with travel to all long-haul destinations says Gordon Penney of Go Hop, which sells holidays to Cuba. He warns that prices in Cuba are likely to rise quickly once the US travel ban is lifted, especially in cities like Havana.

Cuba plans to build 30 hotels over the next six years with the help of foreign investors, adding 10,000 rooms to the 48,600 that exist now, as well as golf courses, said Miguel Figueras, the top adviser to the Cuban tourism minister. It already has a thriving tourism sector: some 2.5 million tourists visited Cuba this year, mostly from Canada and Europe, said Figueras.

Cuba was a favorite playground for Americans in the 1950s, when the Mafia ran casinos and brothels in Havana that were closed by Castro. As Cuba turned to Communism, Washington broke off diplomatic ties, imposed trade and travel bans and Cuba’s tourist trade with the US all but disappeared.

President Barack Obama has said he wants to improve ties with Cuba and lifted restrictions introduced by the Bush administration on visits and family remittances by Cuban Americans.

But whether American tourists will return to Cuba will hinge on the debate in Congress, where opponents say sanctions should not be lifted until Cuba frees political prisoners and undertakes democratic reforms to its one-party state.