Cuba Can Service U.S. Tourists If Ban Lifted, Official Says

Cuba Can Service U.S. Tourists If Ban Lifted, Official Says
By Jens Erik Gould

June 24 (Bloomberg) -- Cuba's tourism industry will have enough capacity
for the surge of American travelers expected should U.S. lawmakers lift
restrictions on visits to the island, said Miguel Figueras, an adviser
at Cuba's tourism ministry.

Cuba agrees with an estimate by the American Society of Travel Agents
that 835,000 U.S. tourists a year, excluding cruise ships or
Cuban-American family visitors, would come after an end to the travel
ban, Figueras said. Cuba aims to build 30 new hotels with 10,000 rooms
and 10 golf courses by 2014 without counting on changes in U.S. policy,
he said.

"The Americans are welcome here," Figueras said in an interview
yesterday in Havana's historic Hotel Nacional. "You have to be prepared
for that, but you can't make your development plans depend on whether
this happens."

U.S. lawmakers may take up scrapping the ban on travel to the communist
island, which has been under a U.S. trade embargo for almost five
decades. President Barack Obama in April loosened travel restrictions
for Cuban-Americans visiting family members and lifted caps on money
Cuban-Americans may send relatives there. He maintained the embargo.

The proposal has support to pass because Obama and the U.S. business
community favor it, said Representative Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut
Democrat who co-sponsored the bill.

'Brand New Environment'

"This issue is being discussed in an absolutely brand new environment,
which is drawing support that it has lacked in the past," DeLauro said
in an interview.

An end to the travel ban might erode other aspects of the embargo such
as the ban on bank relations, which keeps travelers from using U.S.
credit or debit cards in Cuba, Figueras said.

The number of passengers flying to Cuba from the U.S. doubled in May to
about 20,000 from a year earlier after Obama announced changes to the
rules applied to Cuban-Americans, Figueras said.

Still, the global economic crisis is cutting total tourism revenue as
visitors spend less money and fewer days on the island, he said.

Revenue dropped 14 percent in the first quarter from the same period in
2008, while the number of visitors rose 2 percent to 809,937, according
to the National Statistics Office.

The tourism sector represents 7 percent of gross domestic product,
Figueras said. Revenue increased 11 percent to 1.67 billion convertible
pesos ($1.8 billion) last year from 2008.

U.S. Companies

"Every month an American company comes," Figueras said, citing talks
with U.S. companies about hotel and golf course projects that might be
possible should the embargo end.

"The Americans are missing out," said Juliette Sibson, a British tourist
sipping frozen daiquiris at El Floridita, a bar in central Havana made
famous by Ernest Hemingway. "Cuba is stunning. The history is amazing."

Claudia, 22, a Cuban tour guide who declined to give her last name, said
she hoped the U.S. will build on Obama's recent changes for
Cuban-Americans by allowing all Americans to visit.

"It would be good because it would bring more tourists," she said in
Havana's Parque Central square. "I have family in Miami and they're
coming more."

If U.S. travel restrictions were lifted, the number of American visitors
would more than triple from 171,000 in 2005 to between 554,000 and 1.1
million, according to the U.S. International Trade Commission.

Canadian Tourists

Last year, Canadians accounted for 818,246 of the 2.3 million tourists
that visited the island, the Cuban statistics agency said.

The Dominican Republic, another Caribbean resort destination, housed 4.4
million tourists in about 60,000 hotel rooms in 2006, according to its
tourism ministry Web site.

Many Americans who visit Cuba arrive on flights from Canada or Mexico
and ask Cuban customs officials not to stamp their passports to avoid
fines for violating the travel ban.

Cuba has about 48,000 hotel rooms, Figueras said. There are 15 hotels
under joint venture contracts with foreign companies, and 49 hotels
managed by international partners. The foreign companies include Sol
Melia SA, the world's largest resort operator, and Accor SA, Europe's
largest hotel company.

Eusebio Mujal-Leon, a professor of Cuban studies at Georgetown
University, said the Cuban government might use visas to control the
flow of U.S. tourists because it lacks sufficient hotel capacity to
house them.

"They're not going to have massive entry," Mujal-Leon said. "They don't
have the infrastructure for it."

Figueras said there were no plans to limit the number of Americans who
can visit Cuba.

The number of American visitors in Cuba would increase slowly if the
travel ban were lifted because it would take time for U.S. airlines to
develop new routes and for travel agencies to develop tourist packages
for the island, Figueras said.

"This isn't an American tsunami that would happen overnight," he said.
"It takes time."

To contact the reporter on this story: Jens Erik Gould in Havana at
jgould9@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: June 24, 2009 14:45 EDT

Cuba Can Service U.S. Tourists If Ban Lifted, Official Says -
Bloomberg.com (24 June 2009)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aa6SXlYOMZHU