Cuba: High-Priced Tourism

Cuba: High-Priced Tourism / Ivan Garcia
Posted on September 14, 2015

Ivan Garcia, 2 September 2015 — After working two years in a remote part
of Africa, Migdalia, a pediatrician, carefully considered the summer
vacation packages available in Cuba. In the end she opted to stay three
nights in a five-star hotel in Cayo Santa Maria, on the northern coast
of Villa Clara, 460 kilometers east of Havana.

"Although I am a professional, I've never stayed in a first-class hotel.
I used most of the money I saved in Africa to renovate my kitchen and
repair the roof of my house. My family and I decided to spend the rest
on a stay at a tourist resort, which turned out to be quite expensive. A
three-night 'all-inclusive' cost us 996 CUC, including transportation.
That's the equivalent of 25,000 pesos, as much as the cost of a plane
ticket to Madrid," she says smiling as she and her family wait for the
bus that will take them to the hotel.

Since the spring of 2008, when General Raul Castro granted permission
for Cubans to stay at resort hotels — something that at the time was
only available to foreigners — there has been an increase in the number
of domestic tourists every season.

The number of local tourists is expected to reach one million according
to state tourist bureau forecasts. Their profiles are diverse.

Aimara, a housewife, spent four nights at a hotel in Cayo Coco
accompanying her boyfriend — a man from the Venezuelan state of Falcon
who works for a branch of PDVSA, his country's state petroleum monopoly
— in Cienfuegos province.

"Thanks to my boyfriend, my daughter and I have been able to enjoy a
nice vacation. Before, our options would have been renting a cabin in
the countryside or spending the weekend at the beach. The difference is
striking if you take into account the air-conditioned hotel rooms, all
there is to eat and drink, international TV channels and excellent
service. It feels like being in another country," she says.

This is the ninth time that Nuria, a hooker, has stayed in a hotel on
the Cuban tourist circuit. "The first time was with a Canadian. Now I'll
be staying with an Italian in Cayo Guillermo. It's true that prices are
prohibitive for the vast majority of the population, but in my case I am
not the one paying," she says.

For three years Adela saved up her money for a three-night stay at a
hotel on the keys north of Villa Clara. "I am a manicurist," she says.
"I have a small business where I scraped together enough pesos to pay
for an 'all inclusive.' It's great. It's a shame Cuban workers can't
enjoy this. In Cuba the differences between those who have hard currency
and those who live just on their salaries or pensions keeps getting bigger."

Although only ten percent of Cubans can enjoy a brief stay in an
"all-inclusive" hotel, the amenities they enjoy, the amount of food they
eat and beer they drink have become a topic of conversation among
friends and neighbors.

In a nation without political freedoms or democracy, with a chaotic
infrastructure and poverty-level wages, it is frivolities that capture
the imagination of its citizens, who prefer to talk about consumer
brands, football matches and vacations in luxury hotels than the civil
rights denied them.

The behavior of some compatriots at resort hotels can on occasion be
embarrassing. One seven-person family, including the children, were seen
stuffing all the food they could into plastic shopping bags at the
buffet table of the Melia Las Dunas Hotel in Cayo Santa Maria.

"We've seen less of this type of behavior in the last two or three
years. As a Cuban I can understand it. If you never have beef, seafood,
good quality fish, cheese or cold cuts at home, you get carried away
when you are at a place like this," says a buffet table cook. "As
employees, we don't say anything to them but the managers do. The
employees take home all the food we can or sell it on the black market."

As Selma, a manager at the military-run Gaviota travel chain, explains,
"Many Cubans are able to stay at four or five-star hotels because of the
overseas remittances they receive or because they are invited by family
members living in the United States or Europe. But you cannot ignore
that the fact that the number of Cubans with successful private
businesses has grown dramatically and some of them stay up to three
times a year at tourist resorts."
Although a three-night stay is the equivalent of two-years' salary for a
doctor, Migdalia, who worked for twenty-four months in Africa, believes
it is worth it.

"Since our salaries do not allow us to travel as tourists to other
countries, some of us can have an oasis of abundance at the resorts in
our own country. But I realize that most Cubans still have not
benefitted from the economic reforms," she says.
The government of Fidel Castro created a nation based on equality and
collectivism. In exchange for a doctrinaire education and universal
health coverage, he socialized poverty.

The state used to be the institution that rewarded or punished. Getting
an apartment, a house on the beach or an Aurika washing machine depended
on the degree of loyalty shown to the regime.

Now all that has changed. Public finances are in the red. Tourism in
Cuba is an expensive luxury, to say nothing of tourism overseas. Only
those with the deep pockets of the military bourgeoisie can afford such
an option. Only guys like Antonio Castro and a handful him.

Source: Cuba: High-Priced Tourism / Ivan Garcia | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/cuba-high-priced-tourism-ivan-garcia/