Posted on 05/11/2018 6:59:29 PM PDT by Simon Green
As U.S.-Cuban relations warmed in recent years, Matilde Portela, an Airbnb host, reveled in the flood of American tourists arriving. An aspiring business executive at age 73, she quickly learned the art of niche marketing – adorning her home with two American flags and laying out back copies of the New Yorker.
“We had so many Americans coming that we didn’t know where to put them,” Portela said.
But Cuba’s Great American Tourist boom has now turned to bust.
During the first three months of this year, 95,520 Americans came to Cuba – a 40 percent drop from the same period last year, according to Cuban government statistics. The decrease in Americans seeking to discover one of tourism’s last forbidden fruits is hurting this island’s access to hard cash, and setting back the effort to reestablish ties between U.S. citizens and communist Cuba.
The fall in American visitors happens as a thaw in relations under former President Barack Obama has turned to frost under President Donald Trump – particularly after revelations last August that more than two dozen U.S. diplomats, family members and intelligence agents stationed in Havana had suffered mysterious brain injuries. While the Cuban government has denied any involvement, the U.S. government has accused it of, at the very least, failing in its obligation to protect diplomats. The result: stark U.S. warnings to Americans to avoid visiting the island. Along with a Trump administration overhaul of the travel rules to Cuba, those warnings have deterred Americans from coming.
Those most feeling the pinch, observers say, are the very Cubans the Trump administration has vowed to defend here: Small-business owners looking to inject a dose of the free market into this island.
Cuba’s economic opening has significantly lagged those of other communist states, especially China and Vietnam.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
Why would anyone want to visit a county that is just a big version of New Jersey?
My in-laws from CT went to Cuba. They were all excited. It was going to be like a time machine! Back to the 1950s! Like America before we became inundated with consumer culture! A simpler, purer time!
They hated it. Backward, dirty, primitive, uncomfortable. The pits.
But my in-laws still like socialism very much.
The Dominican Republic is a thousand times better.
I suspect the novelty simply wore off.
Cuba is a typical communist/socialist country. Not much to see, eat, hear, or experience. A tourist can have the same experience regarding European colonialism in the Carribean by visiting a dozen other countries or territories. Some of the others are even successful and civilized with modern conveniences!
There are things to do, the Socialists are just screwing up the implementation.
For example, Cuban lakes were stocked with Florida Largemouth Bass before the revolution.
They’re now considered an invasive species. They’re huge.
Get some bass boats on the lakes and cabins with air conditioning and sportsmen will be lined up at the gate.
Kennedy blew it. Just think what Cuba could have been today.
We already have mexico, so tourists dont have any need of mexico 2.0
“Great American wave of tourism recedes after brief Cuban dalliance”
not a big loss ... plenty of other shithole countries to visit ... for those who like to visit shithole countries ...
The other thing not mentioned is that trips to Cuba are very expensive. It’s one thing to spend $5000 to go to some far-off place like Thailand or Australia and visit exotic whatevers, but a whole different thing to travel to a place 90 miles offshore with a group in a seriously escorted tour that stays in hotels we would barely dignify with the name.
I think Cuba has burned through the wealthy leftists who will put up with anything and is now facing reality.
A friend from UK went to Cuba a few years ago.
He said the hotel was substandard and full of drunk Canadians. Not impressed.
What are drunk Canadians like, aggressively dull?
There were tons of travel bugs who just wanted to check it off their bucket list. Cuban infrastructure was no way up to the deluge and perhaps most of those who just HAD to go have already done it.
I have read that all of the comparatively rich tourists who visit suck up all the assets on the island and make things such as market fruits and veg unaffordable for the locals.
My wife and I went last year to Havana on a cruise. Other than the old cars, it is, in the words of our President, a shithole.
My take on Havana is, the Mafia ran it better, and the people had more freedom.
It is a hell hole
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