Economy & Trade, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean, North America

CUBA-U.S.: Fight Continues for Open Travel by U.S. Citizens

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Nov 14 2003 (IPS) - Pressure from the U.S. tourism industry and farmers on their national lawmakers is creating cracks in the rigid 40-year-old embargo against Cuba, despite this week’s setback for a U.S. bill on lifting the ban on travel by its citizens to the Caribbean island.

A group of negotiators from the Senate and House of Representatives conference committee decided late Wednesday to maintain the travel restrictions after President George W. Bush threatened to veto the broader treasury and transportation bill if that measure was not withdrawn.

But the decision is seen as merely postponing the inevitable, as the initial votes by both houses of the U.S. Congress favoured lifting the travel restrictions, in practice by blocking the funds used for investigating or prosecuting U.S. citizens or residents who travel to Cuba.

The Senate voted 59-36 in October, and the House of Representatives 227-188 in September in favour of similar measures that would effectively lift the travel ban.

The Cuban Foreign Ministry reacted by saying that the anti-Fidel Castro forces in the United States and the country’s Republican Party had to resort to "anti-democratic mechanisms" in order to eliminate the amendment.

The move "shows once again that the U.S. anti-Cuba policy is a total failure and must change, in that it does not represent the genuine and legitimate interests" of the U.S. people, said a ministry communiqué issued Thursday.

Senator Richard Shelby, of the southern U.S. state of Alabama and a Republican like Bush, said there was "no alternative" but to drop the matter of the Cuban travel ban if the budget bill was to move forward.

Only diplomatic personnel, journalists on official missions and members of the Cuban community living in the United States can travel to Cuba without obtaining a special license from the U.S. Treasury Department.

The travel restrictions, in force since 1963, affect any U.S. citizen and all foreigners with U.S. residence status, with the exception of those born in Cuba. The penalties for violating the law include fines of 50,000 to 250,000 dollars and up to 10 years in prison.

An Oct. 23 statement from the White House warned that Bush would veto any congressional initiative that favoured ending the restrictions on tourist travel to the socialist-run island.

Nevertheless, political observers in Havana see the fact that both houses of the U.S. Congress overwhelmingly support easing the travel ban as an indicator that its days are numbered.

A group of small companies, led by charter flight operators that fly to Cuba, has reportedly garnered the support of some larger companies to push for the removal of the travel ban.

"We are a large industry and sometimes we do not use the political power we have in terms of jobs, in terms of votes," said Brad Belt, executive director of the Association of Travel-Related Industries, during a conference last month in Mexico of U.S. and Cuban tourism operators.

Sources from the travel industry acknowledged that they are looking at the success of the U.S. farm sector in pressuring Congress. In 2001 agricultural groups won authorisation for sales to Cuba, with the restriction being that Havana has to pay cash.

Since November 2001, U.S. exports of food, livestock and other goods to Cuba have totalled some 500 million dollars.

An end to the restrictions on U.S. pleasure travel to the Caribbean island could mean important revenues, both for Cuba and the United States, agree sources from both countries.

Cuba is expecting an "avalanche" of people if the ban is lifted, with as many as 2.5 million to three million U.S. citizens or residents travelling to the island annually within a period of five years, according to Miguel Figueres, adviser to Cuba’s Ministry of Tourism.

If that volume of visitors were achieved, revenues for the island could reach four billion dollars annually.

The United States would also see benefits, largely for the airlines, cruise ships, and the services related to both, and therefore the potential creation of thousands of jobs.

According to Robert Whitley, president of the United States Tour Operators Association, "Pent up demand is going to be huge" after four decades of restricted travel between the two countries.

Cuba expects this year’s tally of tourists will reach 1.9 million, with just over 10 percent being from the United States, travellers who make the trip despite the ban.

Tourism represents more than 40 percent of state revenues, according to official figures.

This month, with the travel ban in full force, most of the 700 gallery owners, artists and art critics attending the Havana Biennial, Nov. 1-Dec. 15, are from the United States.

"I always come because it is a good opportunity to buy artwork and then put it on the domestic market. Sometimes I have come with the travel license, sometimes not," a gallery owner from New York told IPS.

Around half the 80,000 U.S. citizens who travelled to Cuba in 2002 did so without obtaining a license from the Treasury Department, making the trip via a third country. In addition are the 150,000 people of Cuban origin who are U.S. residents or citizens and visited the Caribbean island.

The U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, based in New York, reports that from 1995 to 2000 unauthorised travel grew at an annual pace of 19 to 21 percent, while the number of travellers with licenses grew nine to 11 percent a year.

Ministry adviser Figueres commented that the four-decade-old ban has cost Cuba an estimated 25 million visits from U.S. tourists.

For every million tourists that do not travel to Cuba, U.S. airlines lose 300 million dollars, and travel agencies and operators lose 160 million dollars.

A study conducted by the Brattle Group consulting firm for the non-governmental Centre for International Policy, both based in Washington, states that the annual number of U.S. tourists travelling to Cuba would stabilise at around three million if the ban were lifted.

With that volume of tourists, revenues for U.S. airlines could reach 415 million dollars a year. The growing demand for air travel to Cuba could generate indirect income of 650 million to 1.1 billion dollars annually, says the study.

As for cruise ship tourism, if itineraries would include a stop in Cuban ports, the number of trips to the Caribbean from U.S. ports would increase 10.8 percent and 397,000 more fares would be sold.

Overall, the Brattle Group says the profits for the U.S. tourism industry resulting from the lifting of the Cuban travel ban would reach 1.6 billion dollars a year, with as many as 23,000 new jobs created.

The study was presented in October at the first U.S.-Cuba Travel Conference, held in the Mexican resort of Cancun and drawing more than 100 delegates from the tourism industries of the two countries.