U.S.-based group to promote travel to Cuba at industry convention in Orlando

Cuba on their minds

U.S.-based group to promote travel to Cuba at industry convention in
Orlando.

By Doreen Hemlock
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Posted September 9 2006

HAVANA · U.S. law blocks most travel to communist-led Cuba, but the
Caribbean nation will be represented next week at an international
travel show in Orlando.

A U.S.-based group known as the Travel Industry Committee on Cuba will
promote travel and business links with the neighboring island at a
convention Sunday through Tuesday, spearheaded by the American Society
of Travel Agents, the world's biggest travel agent group.

More than 2,000 travel sellers and more than 1,000 consumers are
expected at the show that will feature booths representing companies and
countries from around the world.

John McAuliff, coordinator of the Travel Industry Committee on Cuba,
said by telephone Friday that his group wants Washington to lift its
40-year-old restrictions on U.S. travel to the island, just as it
liberalized U.S. food sales to Cuba. The move would open new business
opportunities for U.S. travel companies.

For example, Miami-based Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. is now buying
Spain's cruise operator Pullmantur S.A. for more than $500 million to
expand in Latin America and Europe, but it must end Pullmantur cruises
to Cuba to comply with U.S. restrictions on business with the island.

The Alexandria, Va.-based American Society of Travel Agents long has
backed freedom of travel to Cuba and elsewhere as a basic human right.

"ASTA has always supported open access to all destinations," the group
said in response to an e-mail query. "Travel leads to understanding and
communication, and peace."

The Bush administration, in contrast, has been tightening restrictions
on U.S. travel to Cuba, allowing Cuban-Americans to visit only once
every three years and clamping down on trips by U.S. academics.
Officials say the restrictions aim to limit the flow of dollars to the
communist government and hasten democracy in the Caribbean's most
populous nation.

McAuliff said he hopes his group's booth and reception in Orlando next
week will help mobilize more travel agents to join the still nascent
Travel Industry Committee and advocate for travel to Cuba.

"We've isolated ourselves with our policy toward Cuba," said McAuliff, a
former Peace Corps volunteer, active for 21 years with a New York-based
nonprofit group Fund for Reconciliation and Development that initially
pushed for exchanges with Vietnam and Cambodia and took groups there.

The trade show comes as Cuba forecasts record tourism this year, a total
of 2.5 million visitors, up about 8 percent from last year and more than
triple the tally a decade ago. Still, that's only about the same number
as visit Jamaica, a nation with one-fifth Cuba's population.

Most visitors to Cuba come from Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain and
Mexico because of Washington's travel restrictions. The United States is
the top source of travelers to the Caribbean overall, accounting for
about 70 percent of arrivals in Jamaica, for instance, regional
statistics shows.

Cuba began opening to limited tourism in the 1980s and embraced the
industry in the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union meant an
end to an estimated $6 billion a year in Soviet subsidies to the island.
Havana viewed tourism as a quick way to gain needed dollars and euros
without too much investment and invited foreign companies to help manage
new resorts.

The initial focus was low-cost vacation packages offering sun, sand,
sea, rum and fun, all-inclusive vacations that often cost $1,000 to
$1,500 per person per week from Canada or Europe, industry experts said.

But in the last few years, as Havana's cash crunch has eased with help
from Venezuelan oil subsidies and Chinese trade credits, the communist
government has cooled its tourism push. The government has increased
prices at most tourist hotels and restaurants, cracked down on Cubans
renting rooms to visitors, and last year, issued new rules to limit
tourism workers from socializing with foreigners.

Cuba's government is sure to enjoy the publicity generated by the
Orlando trade show, said John Kavulich, a senior adviser to the U.S.
Cuba Trade and Economic Council, a New York-based group that studies
business and other trends on the island.

"Anytime Cuba can potentially insert themselves into the U.S. political
discourse, they will," Kavulich said. "They don't like to be ignored."

Doreen Hemlock can be reached at dhemlock@sun-sentinel.com.

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