Entire Caribbean may get tourist boost from easier travel to Cuba

Relaxed restrictions on US travel to Cuba will probably not hamper overall tourism in the Caribbean but will probably lead to higher visitor numbers in that area of the world, analysts say.
 

The easing of the long-standing US trade embargo will not immediately lead to a rush of visitors but the new measures will make it easier for schools, churches and cultural groups to visit the Communist-ruled island.
 

Arthur Frommer recalls from some previous and legal trips to Cuba that the American government has never been keen on enforcing the travel ban. He predicts “religious charter groups” will soon be common there that aren’t particularly religious oriented. Visitors “will simply take a flight to the Bahamas, Jamaica or Cancun, and then board a short connecting flight to Cuba,” he writes.
 

Cuba is already full of tourists from other countries and Frommer urges the embargo’s unproductive nature be overturned.
 

"I anticipate a surge in applications by a broad range of travel companies and cultural organizations for licenses to operate cultural tours that involve interactions with Cubans," said Cuban travel expert Christopher P. Baker.
 

“Now, travel agencies will be able to organize charter flights with `cultural’’ purposes, which — if the administration interprets its own rules with flexibility — could include almost anything,” writes the Miami Herald, which says that is already happening. But the increase will perhaps not be limited to Cuba.
 

“The new measures won’t produce an explosion of US tourism to Cuba, but that will come eventually,” said Andy Dauhajre, an economist who heads the Dominican Republic’s Economic and Development Foundation. `”And when it comes, it will have a significant impact over places like Cancún, the Bahamas, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic.”
 

Various estimates say a total opening of US tourism to Cuba could lead to one to three million more visitors. But wouldn’t at least some of those come from other areas of the Caribbean, leading to a downswing?
 

“The key is whether Cuba will be able to build more hotel rooms to accommodate the new US visitors,” said Dauhajre. “If it can’t, there will be a spill-over of Canadian and European tourists to other Caribbean destinations.”
 

The opening of Cuba would mean a major shirt in the Caribbean’s tourism industry, concluded a study in 2008 called “Vacation Over: Implications for the Caribbean Opening US-Cuba Tourism.”
 

Cuba receives about 2.5 million tourists a year, mostly from Canada, Europe, and Latin America.
Carlos Vogeler, head of the World Tourism Organization’s Americas’ department, told The Miami Herald that a massive influx of US tourists to Cuba would bring about a new excitement about

travel to the Caribbean that would result in more travel to all tourism spots in the region.
 

”The pie will grow for all Caribbean tourism destinations,” he said.
 

Cuba, which allows families to host tourists, has nowhere near the infrastructure to handle hordes of new tourists. Hotels are limited and there’s a particular dearth of luxury properties. Visitors to Cuban restaurants will find limited food offerings.
 

On the other hand, Cuba is a beautiful country that is still regarded as exotic by those visitors who either sneak in illegally — which is easy to do — or go in the name of religious or cultural groups.
 

And some visitors will almost certainly go there once but be so disappointed by the lack of creature comforts, they won’t return. So the bottom line is that Cuban tourism will show higher numbers but it almost certainly will increase interest in other Caribbean destinations.
 

By David Wilkening