Agency's flights to Cuba in hot demand
Inglewood's Cuba Travel is among 12 agencies allowed to book trips to Caribbean island.
By Carlos Martinez. LA Times. May 26, 2000
INGLEWOOD -- Buoyed by its growing number of flights into Cuba, Cuba Travel Service is planning its first major travel excursion for the Caribbean island's annual festival.
As one of only a dozen agencies registered with the U.S. Department of the Treasury to handle such trips, Cuba Travel is planning its trip for the 20th annual Caribbean Festival in July.
"This is going to be a big event for us," said company president Karen Blackwell.
The event marks not only the island's biggest cultural program, featuring a number of performers, artists and musicians, but the fledgling travel service's first major excursion.
Since February, the six-month-old company has been conducting flights to and from the islands from Los Angeles International Airport through its only aircraft, a 125-passenger Airbus. The company began the service after President Clinton authorized direct charter flights to Cuba from Los
Angeles, Miami and New York in August.
At the time, the president said he hoped to improve "people to people" contacts without lifting the 40-year-old trade embargo with the island nation.
"Some people have the idea that Castro has slavery over there and that's not true," said Del Richardson, a vice president with Cuba Travel.
"Once people go on one of these trips they see what things are really like."
Due to federal regulations restricting travel to Cuba, which has no formal diplomatic relations with the U.S., travelers must submit an application with the Department of the Treasury to receive consent.
"You can't just say [on the application] that you just want to visit," Blackwell said.
"You have to have a good reason like a cultural exchange or diplomatic reasons or things like that."
Those who typically use the service are Cubans living in the U.S. who are seeking to return home to visit relatives. Blackwell said her group has united scores of families, many of whom have not seen each other in 40 years.
Others make the trip for business, humanitarian or educational reasons for the visit.
According to U.S. government figures, there are more than 100,000 Cuban Americans living in the western U.S. who could take advantage of charter flights available locally through the agency.
Although exact passenger figures were not available, Cuban Travel has continued to conduct weekly flights to Havana averaging nearly 100 people at a cost of $649 for a round-trip ticket in the off-season and $749 during the summer.
Their current festival package is $1,875 for a seven-day stay in Havana at a menu of local hostelries.
"Our phone has been ringing off the hook since we began offering the service," Richardson said.
Those who travel usually wait up to six weeks before their applications are processed by the Treasury Department, thus Richardson encouraged those planning to attend the Caribbean Festival to begin the process soon.
Blackwell warned that those who visit Cuba do not need to follow any specific restrictions, but cautioned that they should use common sense.
"The people there are friendly and hungry for contact with lots of questions, like we have for them," she said.
But Cuban-born Inglewood Councilman Jose Fernandez says he's not planning any trips to the island any time soon.
"I don't have any reasons to go back," Fernandez said, noting that he felt Fidel Castro's regime has led the country to much poverty and financial chaos.
"When people go there they'll see some of the good things, but it's a skewed sense of reality."
While he praised efforts to reunite long divided Cuban families through such trips, Fernandez said he felt such visits would help fuel the Cuban economy and sustain Castro's grip on power.Some travelers, like a 50-year-old Cuban who would not give his name, said he enjoyed the visit and
relative progress of his homeland.
Tourist dollars from Mexico and Latin America have brought some improvements to roads and parks, he said.
Like other Caribbean countries, Cuba's natural beauty and its quaint Spanish style architecture are its biggest selling points, Blackwell said.
"It's a great experience for anyone."
Welcome Trend on Cuba Policy
LA Times. May 26, 2000 / Op-Ed
Momentum is building in Congress to ease Washington's longtime economic isolation of Cuba and resume trade in food and medicine. This is a welcome trend. For humanitarian reasons, food and medicine should never have been subject to trade sanctions. As a practical matter, the policy of
slapping unilateral embargoes on countries out of favor with Washington has been largely discredited.
Alas, congressional recognition of the futility of such embargoes is not the motive for allowing the sale of U.S. food and medicine in Cuba. Rather it is U.S. farmers' need for the Cuban market. Demand last year for U.S. produce withered in Asia, and European consumers rejected genetically
modified corn and soybeans from America. Prices on the world markets tumbled. Business is improving this year, but farmers are not out of the woods.
It comes as no surprise, then, that the strongest support for easing the Cuba sanctions comes from farm state legislators, such as South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle, a Democrat, and Washington Rep. George R. Nethercutt Jr., a Republican, sponsor of a boycott-loosening measure awaiting action by
the full House. A similar measure easily passed the Senate last year. For American farmers, food exports to Cuba represent a potential $1-billion-a-year business.
Another reason why the partial lifting of the Cuba trade embargo has a better chance of passing this year has to do with the dwindling clout of the Cuban American community in the wake of the Elian Gonzalez affair. The community's defiance of U.S. authorities in its refusal to release the
6-year-old boy spurred indignation among many Americans, a sentiment clearly reflected in Congress.
Congress has taken several bold steps recently on the trade front, and for that it deserves credit. Most important, the House passed a measure Wednesday to grant China permanent trade privileges. And last week, after three years of struggle, it enacted a law to open U.S. markets, free of
tariffs, to imports from the world's poorest countries.
The time for a new policy on Cuba is at hand. Motives aside, Congress is on a good path. Easing the ban on food and medicine exports would be an important step. The Nethercutt measure should become law.
Copyright 2000 Los Angeles Times |