What an increase in American visitors could mean for Cuba

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Visitors from the U.S. have 12 ways to justify a trip to the country (including visiting relatives, taking part in academic programs or participating in journalistic or religious activities) and soon there will be six carriers offering 110 flights daily to nine Cuban cities.

After years of Canadians and Europeans enjoying the delights of Cuba, Americans will gradually get to visit en masse too. 91,000 people from the U.S. traveled to Cuba in 2014. By 2015 that figure was 150,000 and it's projected to grow to 1.5 million annually.

The potential influx of U.S. visitors poses several questions though.

Firstly, is Cuba ready? Travel expert Peter Greenberg thinks not. He pointed out on CBS Wednesday that the country only has 60,000 hotel rooms and they're full of visitors from other countries. That woeful figure is emblematic of an unprepared tourism infrastructure, he added, with Wi-Fi, bathrooms, transportation and computer terminals for credit card payments among the aspects that will need to upgrade fast.

The fact that the first flight was to Santa Clara and not Havana was telling too, he said, adding that the Cuban government is splitting the new flights between nine airports as there isn't one hub that can take the increased air traffic.

While cruise ships have been docking in Cuba's ports in increased numbers since Obama restored diplomatic relations in 2014 and travel restrictions have eased, those boats offer beds and meals to their guests. Tourists coming off planes will be on their own.

The finite number of hotel rooms and limited tourist services will mean demand may soon exceed supply and you don't need an economics degree to work out what that will mean for your holiday money.

Airbnb is offering some respite. The company launched in Cuba in April 2015 with 1,000 listings, building on an existing slice of capitalism in the country that saw residents offering home stays or casas particulares to travelers. That figure now exceeds 8,000, the company told Mashable.

Secondly, though, and perhaps more importantly: What will the growing number of U.S. tourists in Cuba mean for the country itself?

Read more at:
http://mashable.com/2016/09/04/american-tourists-cuba/#PBEnxjz1BPqR

[Igel]

1. That "60,000 hotel rooms" number says something.

The total embargo that we often here existed didn't. Many companies doing business with the US ran into sanctions if they did business with Cuba, but for tourists this was an easy problem to circumvent.

It's just that Cuba wasn't the first choice for a lot of tourists. Why go to Cuba when you could go to Greece, the Canaries, Bermuda or numerous other places as good and probably with better amenities? Esp. when vacation was in the summer. But Americans focused on it because, well, of politics.