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Michal Sykes, Director de Cuba Cultural Travel.

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Collin Laverty, Director de Cuba Educational Travel.

VINTAGE CARS, A COUNTRY WITH LOW LEVEL OF ADVERTISING AND PLENTY OF HISTORY. THAT’S WHAT MANY U.S. TRAVELERS SEEK IN CUBA. AN ISLAND THEY HAVE BEEN BANNED TO GO TO AS TOURISTS, BUT A GROWING NUMBER OF THEM ARE LOOKING FOR A WAY OUT SO THEY DON’T MISS OUT ON THE EXPERIENCE OF VISITING WHAT WAS DESCRIBED NOT TOO LONG AGO AS “THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT”

Jose Marti International Airport’s No. 2 Terminal has changed. Some time ago, most of the visitors were Cuban-Americans: nearly two million people. Nonetheless, over the past months this terminal has welcomed lots of American citizens. During the first half of the year, the number of visitors coming from the U.S. has gone up 58 percent.
“They feel curiosity for the culture and idiosyncrasy, and most of them return with a very positive opinion about Cuba, they call their friends and tell them not to miss out on that country before marketing “infects” Cuba, because we live in a very homogenized society,” says Michal Sykes, owner of Cuba Cultural Travel, a company that has been bringing Americans to Cuba for a while and has really had a lot on its plate in recent months.
“It’s been the forbidden fruit for many years,” points out this Californian man that met his wife and mother of his two children while traveling to Cuba from Mexico. Nevertheless, the big wave everybody is expecting hasn’t arrived yet. The 58 percent increase doesn’t account for a great change. We’ll see about that when ferries start traveling and there are more nonstop flights from other cities,” underlines Collin Laverty, a young American that fell head over heels in love with Cuba the very first time he visited the island. Since then, he’s been running a business similar to Sykes’ for years, named Cuba Educational Travel. He has brought important delegations from his homeland.
Both interviewees see eye to eye when saying that U.S. tourists prefer such historical sites as Havana, Cienfuegos, Trinidad or Santiago de Cuba, but none of the historic hallmarks are equipped with adequate conditions to deal with the growing number of visitors. That’s why both Sykes and Laverty see their business grow, but the cap on that is right before their eyes as the infrastructure remains limited. “The five or six five-star hotels in Havana are already sold out from October to May. That’s the reality without a significant increase in the number of visitors. Room capacity is a challenge. Moreover, U.S. tourists usually have higher expectations, which add complexity to the problem,” Laverty, who spends a big deal of time in Cuba, tells Excelencias del Caribe.
Sykes points out that the telephone system is somewhat limited too and American travelers cannot make online reservations. Anyway, the legislation in force establishes that US citizens must come in groups and through agencies like these, so the responsibility of finding accommodation and mapping out programs for visitors is up to them.
Just 90 miles away from the south coast of the United States, Cuba is a country that is being unearthed by most of the Americans, a curiosity that should be exploited by the travel industry, and there are many challenges on the road ahead for this bridge to actually become an opportunity for Cuba’s economy.