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Cuba, insertada en el mercado de cruceros del Caribe, ofrecerá a las navieras itinerarios novedosos. / Now in the Caribbean's cruise market, Cuba offers liners new itineraries.

Cuba & the United States

Cuba’s possible opening to U.S. travel and the piecemeal normalization of relations between the two countries will no doubt have a significant impact on Caribbean tourism because for the first time in over five decades, Cuba –the subregion’s top potential inbound destination- will be hooked up with the region’s number-one outbound market.
Nearly 29 million international tourists traveled to the Caribbean in 2015, leaving an estimated $30 billion worth of revenues. The U.S. chipped in 14.3 million sunbathers that accounted for approximately half of all Caribbean tourist arrivals, followed by Europe (18 percent), Canada (12 percent) and South America (7 percent).
As a travel destination, Cuba raked in over a third of all Canadian visitors to the Caribbean, 17 percent of all Europeans and just 1 percent of American travelers.
The complete lifting of the U.S. travel ban on Cuba might step up the competition and put the U.S. market share of several Caribbean islands in harm’s way (Figure 1).
Since the early 20th century, Cuba became the Caribbean’s top travel destination, especially for American sunbathers. By the late 1950s, a longstanding period of over fifty years of standoffs and all kinds of bans on the island prevailed. This timeframe prompted the loss of spaces and market shares from the major outbound markets, especially the U.S.
Through all these years, other Caribbean destinations with white sandy beaches developed and built properties designed for foreign tourists, most of them bankrolled by lump sums of foreign investment money.
The change in America’s Cuba policy that started on January 2015 –marked by the expansion of licenses for Cuba travel, the increase in tourist arrivals, the docking of cruise liners and the normalization of scheduled flights from the U.S.- puts new challenges in the country’s current tourism scenario.
The possible lifting of all travel restrictions on Cuba travel for American citizens will definitely bring a humongous challenge for the Cuban travel industry, for the entire value chain and for the local governments.
In 2015, the largest Caribbean island received 3,524,779 foreign visitors, up a solid 17.4 percent from the previous year. In the first half of the ongoing year, Cuba has chalked up an 11.7 percent increase from the first six months of 2015.
These upticks are not particularly rendered in the arrival of more Americans, but rather in the push effect triggered by the restoration of relations with the United States, now that many visitors see no evil in traveling to Cuba.
In recent times, tourism has proven to be the sector that’s making the most of the ongoing normalization of relations between the two countries. In the course of the past eighteen months from January 2015 –when the deregulations and new Cuba travel licenses were announced- to June 2016, Cuba has raked in 5,672,698 foreign visitors, including 732,868 U.S. residents (of them 434,722 Cuban-Americans).

Investment opportunities
In this new era may have labeled as the “new thaw”, the way has been paved for the arrival of governmental delegations and businesspeople, as well as the hosting of meetings that bring about deals, agreements and investment projects aimed at strengthening the Cuban travel industry.
This economic sector is by far the fastest-growing business by the hand of international companies and foreign-capital joint ventures.
Tourism’s business portfolio –submitted to nonstop renewal- has closed more than 80 management and marketing deals with 17 foreign hotel companies, plus others linked to the development of golf courses and real estate businesses.
These contracts embrace a grand total of 39,422 rooms –as much as 60.5 percent of the total-, including the deal cut with Starwood, the U.S.-based company that either runs or holds the franchise of roughly 5,500 hotels in some 100 countries for a tally of over a million guestrooms. This company owns such renowned brands as Sheraton, Westin, Courtyard, Residence Inn, St. Regis, Starwood and Marriott. The highlights of Cuba’s hotel industry go to Meliá Hotels International with 30 properties; Blue Diamond with 14 hotels and Iberostar Hotels with a dozen lodgings.
New opportunities are now on the table in search of tools and mechanisms that could fast-track the advance of all economic sectors, giving top priority to those –tourism is a good case in point- that are better prepared to accept foreign capital and assimilate new technologies.
In early September 2016, the first agreement between Cuba and the Latin American Development Bank (LADB) was inked in a bid to boost up favorable financial mechanisms for the sake of the country’s economic and social development.
The deal also makes it easier for the regional institution to join efforts with other international organisms, such as the International Investment Bank and the International Agricultural Development Fund.
By the hand of these international financial institutions (IFI), the island nation could have access to funds for the advance of its economic model in a number of crucial issues contained in the development plans for the year 2030.

Cruises from across the shore
More recently, the island nation has begun to make it up for the lost ground in the realm of cruise travel. The 2015-2016 cruise season wound up with 96 calls in Havana, 26 in Santiago de Cuba and 54 in Cienfuegos. These three cruises terminals –the top three in the country- welcomed approximately 90,000 passengers.
As part of the Caribbean’s cruise market, Cuba will deliver new itineraries. The Caribbean amasses 40 percent of all cruise travel worldwide and all of its destinations combined grab some 25 million cruise passengers.
New itineraries have been announced. France’s luxury cruise line Ponant will also start sailing from the U.S. to Cuba beginning in 2017. Other cruise lines home-ported in America, like Royal Caribbean Cruises, Princess Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line, Crystal Cruises, Pearl Seas Cruises and others are just waiting for their permits and the signing of agreements with Cuba.