Eased travel to Cuba not without hurdles

Eased travel to Cuba not without hurdles

By Patrick Oppmann, CNN

December 6, 2012 -- Updated 1448 GMT (2248 HKT)



STORY HIGHLIGHTS

- Legal travel to Cuba has been off limits to Americans for decades

- "Person-to-person" trips have been greenlighted by the Obama

administration

- Visitors are required to engage in continuous educational exchange

with Cubans

- Some operators have had difficulty renewing licenses to offer tours



Havana, Cuba (CNN) -- Louis and Bonnie Waterer are spending their

retirement filling up their passports, one stamp at a time.



"There are a bunch of people who are trying to visit 100 countries

before they die," Louis explained. "This is number 92 for us."



Country No. 92 for the Waterers is Cuba.



But up until a few years ago, even for intrepid travelers like the

Waterers, visiting Cuba would have been close to impossible.



After Fidel Castro took power in 1959, Cuba went from being a favorite

getaway for Americans to a forbidden destination. Diplomatic relations

and direct travel between the United States and Cuba were cut off. U.S.

citizens spending money on the island faced hefty fines for "trading

with the enemy."



But after decades of false starts, the Obama administration has

reinstituted legal travel to Cuba as a way to reach out to the Cuban people.



It's called "people-to-people" travel, and like nearly everything

involving Cuba, controversy and politics are involved.



"Each traveler must have a full-time schedule of educational exchange

activities that will result in meaningful interaction between the

travelers and individuals in Cuba," U.S. Treasury Department guidelines

for people-to-people travel read.



And while the policy has kicked off a debate over what is a "meaningful"

exchange, a flood of tour operators has entered the still uncertain

world of travel to Cuba.



Americans interested in visiting Cuba are offered free CDs of Cuban

music and itineraries that include welcome parties thrown by Committees

for the Defense of the Revolution, neighborhood watch groups that were

created with the original intention of thwarting a U.S. invasion.



U.S. visitors coming via people-to-people trips shouldn't plan on too

much beach time.



Under the Treasury guidelines, tour operators have to plan nearly every

moment of the trip, and "people-to-people" travel, at least in theory,

excludes relaxing by the pool with umbrella-topped beverages.



Most Americans heading to Cuba go there with the desire to make a

connection with a people they have been prevented from having any

contact with for generations, according to Tom Popper, president of tour

operator Insight Cuba.



"The fact that we are bringing Americans and Cubans together is an

incredible thing," Popper said. "It's a travel experience for the

Americans, it's an incredible thing for Cubans. Some people in parts of

Cuba that we go to, they have never met an American before."



People-to-people travel isn't cheap or easy, though.



A four-night "Weekend in Havana" trip from Insight Cuba, without

airfare, sells for about $2,000 per person.



Popper said the high cost of the trips is due to the fact that operators

need to send guides with their groups to make sure they comply with the

travel regulations, and that renewing the yearly U.S. licenses can take

months of navigating a complicated bureaucracy.



This summer, many tour operators wondered if people-to-people travel was

ending altogether, after the Treasury Department started denying

licenses to operators or simply not responding to renewal requests.



Several tour operators contacted by CNN said that the process may have

gotten bogged down by the fact that the renewal application is now close

to 200 pages and requires that the operators explain how each stop on

the itinerary fosters greater friendship between Americans and Cubans.



"You are doing what you are supposed to be doing and they are changing

the rules as we go. The guidelines are so vague," said Michael Sykes,

who ran the now-defunct Cuba Cultural Tours.



Sykes laid off four employees after his license expired in July and he

was denied a renewal.



"The language is so cryptic and so bureaucratic," he said. "Your average

Joe isn't able to do this -- you have to understand the secret language."



Sykes has now hired what he calls a "bloody expensive" lawyer to guide

him through the process, and he is hopeful that he will be back to

planning trips to Cuba by the end of the year.



Some of the tour operators said they thought the logjam of licenses was

caused by political pressure, particularly from Sen. Marco Rubio,

R-Florida, who is Cuban-American and a fierce critic of the trips



"What these trips are all about is tourism -- it's tourism," Rubio said

on the Senate floor last year. "The reason why this is problematic is it

gives money to the Castro government."



Jeff Braunger, a Treasury Department official in charge of the Cuba

licensing program, said in an e-mail that the department has approved

licenses for 180 tour operators while making sure they are complying

with the law.



"We revised the license application criteria to stress to applicants the

seriousness of the requirements of the people-to-people licensing

program, in part because of reports we received concerning travel under

the licenses," Braunger wrote.



But some tour operators said travel to Cuba has become more cumbersome

and expensive but is not policed any better. One tour organizer

mentioned a recent licensed trip offered by a competitor that included a

day of scuba diving.



"It's supposed to be people-to-people, not people-to-fish," the operator

said.



And there are also complications on the Cuban side, tour operators said.

Last month, the Cuban government abruptly canceled the landing rights

for two of the U.S. charter companies operating flights to the island,

reportedly over a payment dispute.



But most of the tour operators said the headaches are worth the

opportunity to get in early on American tourism to Cuba, which is sure

to explode when the embargo is eventually lifted.



"We are back in operations and hope to stay that way," Insight Cuba

president Tom Popper said. Popper had to lay off 22 people as he waited

several months for the company's license renewal, but he has since added

17 back to his staff.



On a trip organized by Insight Cuba last month, 12 Americans spent their

morning speaking with Cubans at a neighborhood art project.



Michael Pettit, a lawyer from Charleston, South Carolina, said he was

struck by Cuba's many contrasts during his first people-to-people trip

in May.



"I love Cuba," he said. "The history, music, people, photography -- it's

all beautiful."



The politics and uncertainty over continued travel between Cuba and the

United States persuaded Pettit to book another trip right away, he said.



"One of the reasons I came again is because you never know when you

might be able to come legally."



http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/06/travel/cuba-tourism/index.html