Cuba Readies for U.S. Tourists With Luxury Hotels

[Mika]

Cuba Readies for U.S. Tourists With Luxury Hotels
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-26/cuba-readies-for-u-s-tourists-with-golf-courses-luxury-hotels.html

March 26 (Bloomberg) -- Cuba’s hotels could manage a sudden influx of 1 million American tourists if the U.S. Congress lifts its 47-year ban on travel to the Communist island, Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero said.

Additionally, the Caribbean nation is set to expand its capacity of about 50,000 rooms, with groundbreaking scheduled for at least nine hotels in 2010, Marrero said. About 200,000 rooms may be added in the “medium to long-term,” he said. Cuba is also seeking investment partners for 10 golf courses and luxury hotels aimed at Americans, according to a ministry official.

“I’m convinced that today, with the available capacity, we could be receiving the American tourists without any problem,” Marrero said in an interview yesterday in Cancun, Mexico where he was attending a conference of 40 American and Cuban tourist industry representatives.

The tourism industry meeting comes as the U.S. Congress considers a law that would lift the ban on travel to Cuba. Senator Byron Dorgan, one of 38 co-sponsors of the bill, said he has 60 votes lined up to win passage of the measure this summer. Similar legislation introduced in the House has 178 co-sponsors and needs 218 votes to pass if all 435 members vote.

“This is a 50 year-old failed policy,” Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, told the meeting yesterday in a phone call from Washington. “Punishing Americans by restricting their right to travel just makes no sense at all.”

‘New Era’

President Barack Obama said March 24 that he’s seeking a “new era” in relations with Cuba even as he denounced “deeply disturbing” human rights violations by its government. He did not say where he stands on lifting the travel ban.

Obama last year ended restrictions on Cuban-Americans traveling to Cuba and transferring money to relatives back home. The U.S. State Department has also held talks in Havana with Cuban officials about restoring mail service and cooperation on migration issues.
Tourism to Cuba increased 3.5 percent amid the global financial crisis to 2.4 million visitors last year, with 900,000 visitors from Canada leading the way, Jose Manuel Bisbe, commercial director for the Tourism Ministry, said in an interview this week in Havana.

Bisbe expects foreign arrivals to grow by a similar amount this year. If the U.S. travel ban is lifted, hotels won’t be overburdened because Americans will visit year-round and face capacity problems only during the winter high season when occupancy reaches 85 percent, he said.

‘Forbidden City’

“Havana has been the forbidden city for so long that it will be a boom destination even in the low season,” said Bisbe, who estimates Cuba will add another 10,000 hotel rooms in the next two or three years.

Daniel Garcia, who has sold tourists used books in Old Havana since 1994, said more Americans would be good for business.

“The gringos can’t help but spend their money,” Garcia, 43, said at his stand in front of the neo-classical building that housed the U.S. Embassy before Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution. “They are the easiest tourists to sell to. They never ask for discounts.”

Marrero said the government can’t finance development of tourist infrastructure on its own so it’s scouting for foreign partners such as Majorca, Spain-based Sol Melia SA, which already manages 24 hotels on the Communist island.

“The Cubans have provided us with a fairly complete picture of their tourism product and future opportunities for U.S. businesses to work in this market,” Lisa Simon, president of the Lexington, Kentucky-based National Tour Association, said in an e-mailed statement. “We look forward to a follow up conference next year in Cuba, should the legislation pending in Congress be approved.”

Due to the US's sanctions on Cuba (and US businesses) no US companies are involved in the joint ventures that are these hotels and resorts. Even though the European and Canadian governments decry the US sanctions on Cuba and, extra territorially, foreign businesses that might like to do businesses in both Cuba and the US., these foreign gov'ts and companies just love the US sanctions. The US sanctions eliminate the US competition. Talking about shooting one's self in the foot.
:crazy:

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[protocol rv]

1. Funny

They allow multinational corporations to build hotels in Cuba, and profit from it, but a Cuban citizen can't own his own house, or build a small hotel. The only thing Cubans can do is work in the foreign owned businesses, and hope they get good tips.

[Mika]

2. Again, you demonstrate complete ignorance.

By Cuban law, every foreign venture in Cuba is a joint venture w/the Cuban gov't. Cuba owns at minimum 51%. They build it (using Cuban union labor), and Cuba owns the physical property.

Obviously you've never heard of a Cuban paladares.

http://www.propertywire.com/news/features/cuba-opening-property-investment-200810011659.html

Although the constitution now allows private property ownership and technically the majority of Cubans now own their own homes

You know nothing about Cuba. Period. You simply post lies.

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[protocol rv]

3. Technically? Do you even know what real private property is?

I'd like to see you post a link to the legal basis for Cubans to own land, and where they have the ability to build a house, own it, and sell it. Or where they, as individuals can build a hotel. Those JV's don't count. They are just a legal vehicle for the Cuban state, run by the communist oligarchs you love so much, to create an enterprise in which foreign corporations earn profits.

The paladares are small home based eateries, kept small by government edict. In other words, a paladar is not a restaurant. And you know very well a Cuban citizen can not own a restaurant. He is kept on the leash by his communist masters, and can only have a few tables in his living room. The truth, my friend, is that you are upset because I happen to be briefed by Cubans when I post. I know a lot more about Cuba than you do, given your blindness about the true situation there.

Change is coming...and your insults will not stop me, I shall not allow you to create your version of reality, your Potemkin village, your 1984 is done.