Cuba to compete with Florida tourism

[Mika]

So.. its not only the cretinous Miami Cuban exiles who push for the maintaining the US travel sanctions on Cuba after all.

Its good ol' big US tourism (like Disney corp, the casino industry, the Keys, etc) that doesn't want you going to Cuba too.


Cuba to compete with Florida tourism
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-tc-biz-trav-cuba-florida-050may04,0,5158003.story

Florida's Monroe County's updated 10-page "Cuba Strategic Marketing Plan" reflects the growing attention Cuba is getting from Florida's tourism industry. With the White House last month lifting travel restrictions for Cuban-Americans, the debate shifted to what could be the next step: allowing all Americans to visit the Communist island.

Politics aside, that possibility has long been a concern for vacation spots in Florida that fear competition from the lush and exotic island. Studies predict as many as 2 million Americans would vacation in Cuba in the years after the end of travel restrictions.

That potential has the Sunshine State studying how to prepare its top industry for an American tourism boom 90 miles from its shores.

The state's tourism office, Visit Florida, issued a report in 2002 that warned one in five Florida vacationers would pick Cuba over the Sunshine State if given a choice. Last week, officials at the tourism board downplayed the threat from a country with fewer hotel rooms than Detroit.

"But it is also safe to say there will be demand by Americans to see an island that has not been available to them for 50 years," Visit Florida President Bud Nocera wrote in an e-mail last month. "We believe that if and when Americans are allowed to travel to Cuba, much of that travel will be done from Florida."

Florida tourism bureaus see Cuba's reputation for poor accommodations as their biggest defense. The island is known for some of the best Caribbean beaches but also barebones service and budget accommodations.

"The service, the food, the restaurants really are as bad as the reputation," said Christopher Baker, author of a travel guide to Cuba.

Already the Caribbean's second most popular destination behind the Dominican Republic, Cuba reported a 9 percent increase in foreign tourists last year, welcoming roughly 2.3 million, according to the Caribbean Tourism Organization.

Funny that Florida's tourism assoc's defense tactic is to put down Cuba's accommodations - yet Cuba is the #2 (and gaining) international Caribbean tourism destination year after year (except for 2nd class citizen status travel banned Americans, the 99.7% of us non-Cuban-Americans).