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| Reuters |
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Wednesday, January 08, 2003
Watch out Cancun and Jamaica
CAYO COCO, Cuba - (Reuters) - Watch out Cancun and Jamaica --
When European charter airlines begin direct flights to this sandy
key in the coming weeks, Cuba will be taking another
step to recover its position as a premier tourist destination in
the Caribbean. Flamingos, iguanas and alligators on a nature reserve
are an added attraction for tourists looking to lie on sun-soaked
snowy-white beaches and sip daiquiris. Last month, Cuba's communist
authorities opened an international airport able to receive wide-bodied
jets on Cayo Coco, the largest of a string of hundreds of keys along
Cuba's north shore known as Jardines del Rey. Cuba has already built
11 high-end hotels on Cayo Coco and neighbouring Cayo Guillermo
to draw vacationers from Canada, Britain, Germany and Spain. Havana
is also banking on the lifting of a U.S. travel ban some time soon
-- a move that would bring Americans to the Cuban keys, which are
250 miles (400 km) south of Nassau in the Bahamas. "Twenty
years from now these keys could be the premier resort in the Caribbean,"
said Philip Agee, director of the Havana-based online travel agency
cubalinda. "These islands go on and on for hundreds of miles
and offer a fabulous combination of beach, scenery and wildlife.
There is a huge market out there for almost virgin islands like
these," said Agee, a former CIA agent. Proximity to the Gulf
Stream allows for good sport fishing and Cuba plans a marina for
400 yachts and deep sea fishing boats. A golf course is also in
the works on Cayo Coco. Spanish and Canadian entrepreneurs see potential
in the islands and have invested through hotel management deals
and joint ventures with Cuba's communist state. Spain's Sol Melia
hotel chain runs six hotels in the Jardines del Rey keys, out of
the 23 it manages in Cuba. The new airport is operated by AENA,
a Spanish airport-management company. Regular charter flights are
planned to Cayo Coco by Air Canada, Austrian carrier Lauda Air and
Condor, Lufthansa's charter company. Tourism experts said the direct
flights will give Jardines del Rey a boost because tourists will
no longer have to travel overland from other Cuban airports. But
the islands have an overcapacity of hotel rooms that may not get
filled until American tourists arrive, they said. "Cayo Coco
is a beautiful destination with a number of nice hotels. But some
of them were built too quickly and seem too big. I'm not sure they
can fill them all in the short run. Maybe when the American tourists
arrive," said Bernd Herrmann, a Havana-based travel industry
executive. Cuba was once the favourite Caribbean playground for
Americans, when Mafia bosses ran Havana's nightlife. But the casinos
and prostitution rings were shut after the revolution that brought
Fidel Castro to power in 1959. American-owned hotels were expropriated
and tourism moved elsewhere, to the Dominican Republic, Mexico and
Jamaica, whose resorts partly owe their success to communism in
Cuba. Cuba turned to tourism again, after the collapse of its international
sponsor, the Soviet Union, over a decade ago, and the industry rapidly
displaced sugar as the island's top earner of hard currency. The
trade is recovering from the dip in world travel after the September
11 attacks on the United States. Last year, 1.7 million tourists
visited Cuba, slightly below the number of arrivals in 2001 (1.77
million), generating $1.85 billion in badly needed cash for Cuba's
dilapidated economy. Cuba estimates that more than 1 million Americans
would visit as soon as Washington abolished the travel ban, which
has been enforced for four decades as part of an economic embargo
against Havana. U.S. cruise companies are planning to add Havana
to their itineraries when that day comes. U.S. farmers and food
industries are lobbying hard to end the travel restrictions so that
Cuba can earn more dollars to pay for purchases of American food
products allowed under a recent easing of the trade embargo.
Copyright 2002, Reuters News Service |
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