Obama Ends Travel Restrictions – Cuba Prepares for US Tourism Invasion
As had been speculated for weeks, President Obama has officially ended all Cuban-American travel and some financial restrictions to the island nation of Cuba. Obama also is lifted telecommunications restrictions. From AP:
In a further gesture of openness, U.S. telecommunications firms were freed to seek business there, too. But the broader U.S. trade embargo remained in place.
Cuba Prepares for US Tourism Invasion
Cubans are anticipating a huge influx of US Tourist by building a new marina with 1500 slips 80 miles east of Havana near Varadero. According to Reuters:
“If the travel ban is lifted, you’ll probably see hundreds, hundreds of American yachtsmen going to Cuba the next day,” said Timothy Ashby, a former U.S. Commerce Department official who studies Cuban commercial issues.
But all may not be so smooth according to this AP Article:
Cuba has about as many hotel rooms as Detroit and most are already full of Canadians and Europeans. Experts say droves of Americans could drive up prices, unleash calls for more flights and cruises than Cuba can handle and force the government to tighten visa restrictions to regulate the stampede.
An influx of Americans could create a lodging crunch. The communist state has partnered with foreign companies such as Spanish chain Sol Melia to offer about 46,000 hotel rooms across an island about the size of Pennsylvania. Some 17,300 of those rooms are concentrated in the beach resort of Varadero, 90 miles (140 kilometers) east of Havana.
If the US Embargo was lifted, US companies could build all those hotels.
And don’t expect the same level of service you’d find at a Miami resort:
Even at top Cuban resorts, it is often hard to get amenities as basic as an extra roll of toilet paper. Comforts including apples, french fries and bottled beer are sometimes scarce – not to mention perks like in-room coffee-makers or wireless Internet access.
Cuba is in desperate need of American Ingenuity, It’s time to end the embargo.