Vanessa Bauza . The
Sun-Sentinel. May 14, 2001.
HAVANA -- More than half a century after haunting the bars of Old Havana,
Ernest Hemingway still reigns as the most popular Yankee in town. These days,
however, "Papa's" got company.
From millionaire David Rockefeller and historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. to
Kevin Costner, who screened his new Cold War film with Fidel Castro, Americans
are traveling to Cuba in greater numbers than ever.
Even more significant than the high-profile visitors is the steady stream of
U.S. businessmen and lawmakers who arrive with exhaustive schedules, often
touring schools and farms and meeting half a dozen of their Cuban counterparts
in two or three days.
More streamlined visa applications have allowed a growing number of American
tourists to come here under the auspices of educational or cultural exchange
groups licensed by the U.S. Treasury Department.
Some loosely organized tours are providing an excuse to see Cuba — long
the forbidden fruit of Caribbean travel — legally. Americans arrive daily
on packed charter flights from Miami, many attending conferences on everything
from Santeria to salsa dancing.
They party throughout Havana, often visiting many of the now-landmark spots
where Hemingway lived, wrote and drank, and taking in Cuba's architecture, music
and culture. Others venture outside the capital, touring island hotspots such as
Pinar del Rio's tobacco fields and the white sand beaches at Varadero.
This year alone, the U.S. Interests Section in Havana expects 20,000 to
30,000 Americans will travel here legally, in addition to approximately 150,000
Cuban-Americans who visit relatives under a special embargo provision.
Despite civil and criminal penalties for breaking the embargo, another
20,000 Americans will take the chance and travel here illegally through third
countries such as the Bahamas, Mexico and Jamaica.
Few are ever prosecuted because it is virtually impossible to tell when an
American tourist has been to Cuba since Cuban immigration officials don't stamp
their passports.
Americans arrive in Cuba on their pleasure boats, as a side-trip on a
cruise, or, the most common way, on planes.
Booking the flights through a third country is almost as easy as buying a
domestic flight, with most tourists paying for the leg to Havana in the third
country.
With more Americans goingto the island, some in Miami's Cuban-American
community say such tourists are making a mockery of the four decade-old travel
ban.
"It hurts our policy because it provides much needed foreign exchange
which the government needs to feed its repressive regime," said Dennis Hays
of the Cuban American National Foundation.
"Is it crumbling the embargo? No. The biggest factor from my
perspective is that it tends to legitimize the whole regime."
Others think American tourists are the best way to disseminate democratic
ideals.
"We understand the political liberties and civil rights we enjoy as
Americans are suppressed in this particular society," said U.S. Rep.
William Delahunt (D-Mass.) who met with Castro during a trip to Havana last
month along with other anti-embargo American lawmakers and Midwestern rice
growers. "We don't condone, we don't excuse. But in the real world we have
trading relations and military alliances with countries that have a poorer
record than Cuba. There is no better instrument of diplomacy than American
tourists."
Tourists are welcome
Almost uniformly, Cuban government officials say they welcome the increasing
numbers of Americans despite the strident "anti-imperialist" rallies
Castro is leading to protest U.S. policies toward Cuba.
"I think the more Americans who come here, as tourists or not, the more
will understand why we think the way we do," said Kenia Serrano Puig,
secretary of ideology for the Young Communists Union. "It is an important
test of our ideals."
Ironically, Cuban-Americans, the community that most supports the embargo,
represented about 80 percent of the visitors from the United States in 2000.
By sending money to relatives on the island, Cuban-Americans also are Cuba's
biggest source of U.S. dollars. Last year, remittances reached more than $425
million, according to the New York-based U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council.
The influx of American tourists brings needed dollars to the Cuban
government, which estimates the ban has cost the island nearly $16 billion in
tourist revenues in the past four decades.
Licensed American travelers are allowed to spend $158 per day here. But
there is little way to monitor this limit and Americans are known by hotel
workers for their generous tips and spending habits.
Many here wonder whether American tourists will chip away at the island's
socialist values, especially in younger Cubans, who buy knock-off Tommy Hilfiger
polo shirts and listen to worn out Britney Spears cassettes.
"The worst fear Cubans should have are American tourists,"
Delahunt said. "Can you just imagine tens of thousands of Americans coming
here on spring break?"
For many Americans, a trip to Havana is strictly business. This year about
3,400 business executives are expected to travel to Cuba.
"[Americans] are looking beyond Fidel and beyond the politics. They
look at the business opportunities. They look at the educational opportunities,
at the export and import opportunities," said Mark Stiles, a personal
friend of President Bush and former Texas legislator, who visited Havana
recently along with several anti-embargo congressmen. He said he plans to
suggest the president send a "special delegation of people [to Cuba] that
would have another opinion besides Miami-Dade people. People who would be able
to tell him in a non-emotional way what they see here."
Business people generally meet Cuban ministers, policy makers and economics
experts to speculate on post-embargo business opportunities here.
Kirby Jones, an Washington D.C.-based consultant on Cuba who is organizing
the fifth annual U.S.-Cuba Business Summit in Havana in June, called U.S. policy
"schizophrenic." The embargo is meant to keep money from Castro's
government. But that policy is undermined by people-to-people programs that pump
money into the Cuban economy, he said.
"Everybody who goes down there spends money and it all ends up in the
government's coffers one way or the other," said Jones, who favors
unrestricted travel and an end to the trade embargo. "If we wanted to have
an impact on Cuba in terms of culture, society and other things, then we would
send everybody down."
Travel agency boom
While the Bush administration already has stated its unwavering support for
the embargo, the number of U.S. travel agents licensed to do business with Cuba
has increased since September from 137 to 149.
Blossoming "people-to-people" programs charge between $1,500 and
$2,200 per person including airfare, hotel, meals and a guide. In many cases,
the educational, research and cultural exchange component of the trips is
minimal. For many, the licensed trips are simply a chance to tour the town.
"These guys are well-heeled tourists," one tour operator said as
he guided one group of art afficionados. "They aren't really even
affiliated with the group."
Chicago lawyer Dick Murphy came to Havana last month to visit his daughter,
who was participating in a Duke University semester abroad program at the
University of Havana.
Murphy, 50, surfed the Internet until he found a travel agency that offered
a program that fit his schedule and his interests. Traveling with a group of
lawyers from New York, he met with Cuban lawyers here but also found time to
tour old Havana.
"At first you feel funny here because you feel like you're behind the
last iron curtain," he said. "I don't see much purpose [to the
embargo]. It's a little like the tail wagging the dog of American foreign
policy. It's certainly time to re-examine it."
Another Chicago traveler, Larry Berson, 76, said he took advantage of an
Elderhostel trip focusing on Cuban flora and fauna although he confessed he's
not into ecology.
"I wanted to come to Cuba and this was what was available," said
the retired social worker.
During a bountiful dinner at one of Havana's largest state-run restaurants,
Berson read aloud a light-hearted poem spoofing his Cuban experience, including
cold water showers, old plumbing in hotel rooms and exhaustive sightseeing. He
said he traveled to Cuba with an open mind and realized his two-week trip gave
him only a glimpse of conditions on the island.
"We're kind of in a tourist cocoon," he said. "We get on the
bus and off the bus and we're with each other 23 hours a day."
Leading a group of mostly elderly travelers on a trip from the American
Museum of Natural History, Tom Miller, author of Trading With The Enemy: A
Yankee Travels Through Castro's Cuba, reminisced on the early 90's when he would
spin around at the sound of an American accent in the faded colonial quarter.
Today, restaurant minstrels have taken to playing Hotel California in
addition to Cuban classics like Guantanamera and Comandante Che Guevara.
"All we're seeing is Americans, and this is before the embargo is
dropped," Miller said at an Old Havana restaurant. "Afterward, we'll
be seeing Six Flags Over Cuba."
Washington correspondent Rafael Lorente contributed to this report.
Vanessa Bauza can be reached at vbauza@sun-sentinel.com
Copyright 2001, Sun-Sentinel Co. & South Florida
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