USA Today reports on the growing anticipation among U.S. tour operators of the opening of Cuba to United States tourists. Cuba is poised to host the International Tourism Fair, which begins tomorrow, and which will showcase the largest Caribbean island for tour operators, travel agents, airline and cruise representatives from around the world. President Obama’s lifting of travel restrictions for Cuban-Americans with relatives on the island has led to expectations that soon all restrictions on travel to Cuba will be lifted. Bob Whitley, president of the United States Tour Operators Association commented that he was “very involved trying to get a law passed to lift the travel ban, and we have lots of (bipartisan) sponsors.” Christopher Baker, author of the Moon travel guide to Cuba, added that “momentum is definitely building.” He expects to see U.S. firms at the fair and is feeling optimistic that Cuba will again become a sanctioned destination for Americans and their dollars. “There is demand. A lot of (Americans) want to see Cuba,” Whitley says.

It is estimated that about 40,000 U.S. tourists travel to Cuba annually despite the ban, traveling through Mexico, Canada, Jamaica, and the Bahamas. “Americans have always been heartily welcomed” in Cuba, says Brendan Sainsbury, author of the current Lonely Planet guides to Cuba and Havana. Cuba has “never put any restriction on visitation from North American tourists,” says Alberto Gonzalez Casals, first secretary of the Washington, D.C., Cuban Interests Section. U.S. tourists “are welcome in Cuba, like all the tourists in the world.”

Cuba reported 2.3 million tourists last year and it is second only to the Dominican Republic (which reported 3.4 million visitors last year) as a tourist destination. Most visitors to Cuba, however, are Canadians and Europeans. “A large tourist infrastructure does exist,” Sainsbury says, especially four dozen mainly all-inclusive resorts on Varadero Beach, but some wonder whether the level of facilities available in Cuba would satisfy the expectations of “demanding Americans.” Christopher Baker argues that Cuba does not get a high percentage of repeat visitors. Cubans own the hotel real estate, “and (foreign) hoteliers don’t have free rein to manage as they wish. Bad service and food are common. Communism and good service don’t go together.” An influx of visitors from the United States would require an expansion of facilities in Cuba, which now have very high occupancy rates of between 78% and 80%. “I suspect that the likes of Starwood and Ritz-Carlton will one day be in Cuba,” Baker says. “But probably not until they can take control of their product.” Cruise lines are already poised to add Cuban ports of call, experts say. Whitley says U.S. tour operators could organize Cuban vacations in six months or fewer.

“There is a mystique” about Cuba, he says. “A lot of people want to see it because we’ve been denied the right.”

“The main plus of Cuba is its uniqueness,” Sainsbury adds. “Due to its isolation over the last 50 years, it has developed in a totally different way.” Whitley says legislation allowing U.S. tourism “could pass this year. In time, Cuba is going to be one of the major destinations in the Caribbean.”

The likelihood of U.S. tourists turning to Cuba as a preferred destination worries tour operators in other Caribbean islands, which depend on tourism for a large percentage of their economies. For more see our post of April 20, 2009, The Possible End of the Cuban Embargo Seen as Posing a Threat to Other Island Economies.

For the complete story at USA Today go to http://www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/2009-04-30-legal-cuba-tourism_N.htm