Cuba latest hot spot for tourism
Cuba’s recent tourist show in Havana opened with officials saying the country welcomed 2.5 million international visitors last year, a 4.2 percent increase from 2009. In the first four months of the year, arrivals have gone up almost 12 percent.
One major reason is that the US government has cut travel restrictions there for American visitors.
Cuba currently prohibits foreign ownership of real estate but leaders there say they are considering granting medium-to-long-term leases, a move which would add to more tourist interest.
The cash-strapped Caribbean island now wants to attract a more affluent, bigger-spending class of tourists, and golf is seen as the key, the BBC’s Michael Voss in Havana says.
Currently, there is only one 18-hole golf course in the whole of Cuba. However, there are plans for 10 new courses, several of which are in an advanced stage of planning.
A number of European and Canadian investment firms have proposed building golf courses coupled with luxury sea front apartments and villas.
But in a country with no real estate market, where Cubans are not allowed to buy or sell their homes, the government has long been wary of allowing foreigners to own property, reporters say.
Before 1990, the economy was based on the production of goods, but that is changing. “We have moved from sugar to tourism,” said Juan Triana, director of the University of Havana’s Center for Study of the Cuban Economy.
More than 90 percent of Cuba’s foreign exchange in 1990 came from sugar sales to the Soviet Union, reported Reuters. But tourism now accounts for half of Cuba’s foreign exchange earnings.
By David Wilkening
David
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