Never thought of visiting Cuba? Well, you might be soon. In our Breakout Role series, we take a look at places that have seen huge increases in tourism in the last few years, and try to figure out what’s causing all the hype.
For any American traveler under the age of 55, the thought of a vacation in Cuba has almost always been a foreign concept. That all changed in 2015 though, when president Obama reopened diplomatic relations with the Caribbean nation for the first time since 1961.
Obama was the first president to visit Cuba while in office since Calvin Coolidge made the trip in 1928, and now many Americans are following suit. For U.S. citizens, booking an actual vacation to the former Soviet ally, which lies just 90 miles south of Florida, is still fairly difficult—but it’s not impossible.
With a new administration in office, it’s unclear what the state of American-Cuban travel will be going forward, but one thing is for sure: Cuba’s tourism industry is thriving with or without the United States. The country’s number of yearly international visitors increased by 17 percent in 2015 alone, making it the world’s 14th fastest-growing market. This trend isn’t a new phenomena either, and Cuba’s annual visitors has been growing steadily since the late ‘90s, with the number essentially doubling between 2002 and 2015.
Lights
Photo: Patrick Denker, CC-BY
John Ahrens, the director of a tour company called Cuban Adventures, says he’s seen his business grow organically over the past few years, with his company’s popularity matching of that of the hospitality industry as a whole. For him, Cuba’s prominence in the world tourism market is largely a product of current economic and cultural situation—developing but preserved, it’s a country caught between the old and the new.
“Things have changed from the last 20 years, but the character is still pretty much the same. The culture hasn’t changed that much, but there’s been an improvement in the services available. ”
While Ahrens has noticed more taxis, more restaurants and more bars pop up in recent years, prices have remained relatively cheap. For example, restaurant prices in Cuba are about 60 percent less than in the U.S., and a pint of domestic Cuban beer only costs around $1 on average, compared to $4 in America.
And renewed U.S. presence is certainly playing a role as well. In the first year after relations reopened, American travel to Cuba—which up to that point had been done through a third country or other indirect method—increased by 77 percent, and many U.S. companies are eager to invest in the Cuban economy.
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