Cuba lifts ban on locals staying in hotels

[bjorkfan]

MIAMI - Cuba's so-called "tourism apartheid" -- which has long prohibited locals from staying at hotels -- ends midnight Monday, according to news agencies in Havana.

The move ends a ban that many Cubans had fixated on as a prime example of the inequities and hardships they faced under Fidel Castro's regime. The lifting comes five weeks after Fidel Castro's brother, Raul, took over the nation's presidency, and just days after he ended the ban on Cubans owning personal mobile phones, computers and household appliances.

But the measure is largely symbolic: a night's stay at a luxury hotel in Cuba can cost more than $200 -- which is just about what the average Cuban earns in a year.

Cubans were prohibited from staying at hotels even if someone else paid the tab.

Reuters news agency reported Monday that now Cubans can also rent cars and go to beaches once restricted to tourists....

more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-080331-cuba-hotel-ban,1,2403152.story

[bjorkfan]

1. Better late than never, I guess

[Mika]

2. Maybe the rest of the Caribbean islands will follow suit.

Pumping their limited supply of money into foreign owned businesses will only sap their economy.

Cuba's practice in this area was on par with the policies in most all of the Caribbean countries. Its about economics.

Been there. Seen it.

[Judi Lynn]

5. I remember hearing your comments from other Carribean destination travelers, too.

From what I started hearing around 2000, when more people were talking about the Caribbean more often, due to Cuba's being the center of attenion because of the Elián event unfolding, came from people like Canadians who enjoy going all over the Caribbean on holidays, and learned back then that this situation has existed EVERYWHERE in the islands, not just Cuba, and that it's ignorant to come to such shakey conclusions about something based on so LITTLE information, and so FEW actual facts.

People desperately need to step BACK, and wait until they know enough to see the BIG picture, instead of living like those 10 blind men all walking around an elephant and coming to conclusions that the elephant is like a tree, or a snake, or a wall, or a rope.

[roody]

3. When is my government going to lift the ban on my staying

in a hotel in Cuba? Not that I plan to obey.

[Billy Burnett]

4. ..