Just Trying to Cope
As Cuba tries to cope with its Obama-inspired tourist boom, there are bound to be bumps along the way. The Jamaica Observer used the above photo to illustrate an horrendous bus crash that took two lives and seriously injured six passengers. Cuba's Escambray newspaper reported that the bus carried 27 German and Austrian tourists on a 7-day trek around the island when a truck-and-trailer carrying television sets in a container hit a bridge abutment and then careened into the bus, killing the bus driver and a German passenger. Because of the influx of tourists since U. S. President Obama announced his normalization plans in December of 2014, Cuban state media have urged caution. The bus was in Santi Spiritus and was on its way from Santiago de Cuba to Trinidad. Both accidents and crime are rare in Cuba.
Tourism in Cuba is up 14% for March 2016 compared to March 2015. Cuba's Minister of Tourism, Alexis Trujillo, says he expects an additional 175,000 foreign visitors this year after the island attracted 3,524,000 in 2015. He said new construction of hotels will add 3,700 hotel rooms and 5,677 rooms are being upgraded with an emphasis at the moment on Havana, Varadero, and the cays off the northern coast of the island.
Carnival Cruise Lines has reached agreement with Cuba and the U. S. to begin travel to Cuba. Carnival will launch a 7-night cruise to Cuba from Miami leaving every other week beginning next month.
Havana's legendary Hotel Nacional has been refurbished. Not counting Cuban-Americans, 161,233 people from the United States visited Cuba in 2015, an increase of 79%. Many more Americans have booked-out many overflowing Cuban hotels for the rest of 2016. The Obama administration has paved the way for commercial airline flights to the island for the first time in five decades, and six major U. S. airlines are fighting for those rights, especially to fill the limit of 20 such new flights to Havana. But Cuba already is connected with 60 cities worldwide and 54 international airlines that serve main resorts such as Cayo Santa Maria, Jardines del Rey, Holguin, and Santiago de Cuba. {Cays are islands off Cuba's main island}.
This is the beautiful beach at Cayo Santa Maria.
This is Cayo Royalton Santa Maria resort.
Cayo Santa Maria is just off the north-central coast of Cuba. A bridge actually connects it to the town of Caibarien. In addition to its beauty, Cayo Santa Maria is one of the world's favorite bird-watching sites.
The bridge from Caibarien to Cayo Santa Maria.
Starwood Hotels and Resorts has signed the first U. S. contract with Cuba since the 1959 Cuban Revolution. Starwood is converting two Cuban hotels to its high standards and is negotiating a third hotel.
Luckily, AIRBNB has discovered Cuba just in time for Obama's innovations and kindnesses. AIRBNB now makes it much easier to rent private rooms in Cuba and also help everyday Cubans economically.
Many visitors to Cuba prefer to eat in paladares, the restaurants in private homes, and rent rooms in private homes like the one depicted above, a process now made easy by airbnb. American travelers to Cuba in 2015 came from all 50 U. S. states, with a whopping 27.8 percent from California. Some 13,000 overall tourists in 2015 stayed with private hosts and now there are over 4,000 eager to serve tourists.
Melissa Santana {in the brown hat in this NAU photo} is an Assistant Professor at Northern Arizona University. She took a dozen of her students on a joyful spring vacation to Cuba {above} from March 12-18.
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This photo is courtesy of Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post. It shows happy students at Maryland International Day School. They arrived in Havana Friday. The entourage to Cuba included 26 children 5 to 13 years of age. They have studied Cuba and are taking classes with Cuban students.
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