Historic Cuban-US Travel Conference wound up in Havana

Organizers of the first Cuban-US Travel Conference called it an historic event that began an intensification of the process to lift the Washington-imposed travel prohibitions.

The two-day conference in Cancun, Mexico, was organized by ATRIP (Association of Tourist Related Industry Professionals) and other US organizations in favor of ending these limitations. Participants included travel agents, tour operators, airlines, cruise companies, and legal firms, among others.

After sessions in the Mexican beach resort, 40 US participants traveled to this capital Monday, at the invitation of Havanatur and the Cuban Tourism Ministry, to learn about Cuban facilities in the tourist sector.

The conference was a response to the increasing demand in the United States to lift prohibitions on US citizen traveling to Cuba, considered by participants as a blatant violation of their constitutional rights of free movement.

ATRIP executives, president Michael Zuccato and executive director Brad Belt, said this serves to give voice to the US travel industry"s demand to do business with Cuba in this sector.

It also concerns hearing the majority of US citizens against those measures, silent until now but, according to recent polls, over 70 percent of the US population.

Zucatto, Belt, Kirby Jones, president of Alamar Associates, Matt Grayson, director of Industry and Government Relations of the National Tour Association, Robert Whitley, president of the US Travel Agent Association and Miguel Alejandro Figueras, adviser to Cuba"s tourism minister, gave their criteria during a news conference in this capital.

ATRIP announced it will increase pressure in Congress to eliminate prohibitions, "although we see this will not be easy." Conference participants highlighted the importance of this meeting for the contact and exchange of information, and the US participants learned the peculiarities of the Cuban tourist market.

According to estimates by specialized US companies, lifting travel prohibitions would allow 2.5 million US people to go to Cuba annually. This would create new jobs and $1 billion income in the United States.

An official Cuban delegation led by Cuban Tourism Minister Ibrahim Ferradaz were guests at the meeting, as were representatives of foreign hotel companies in the Island, led by the Spanish Group Sol Melia"s Cuba division, which became the principal sponsor of the meeting.

The conference was held at Gran Melia Cancun Hotel and a simultaneous exhibition of Cuban tourist products and services was held by Havanatur, Cubanacan, Gran Caribe, Horizontes, Habaguanex, ECASA and the Civil Aeronautics Institute, Amistur travel agency, C-COM mobile telephone companies, and Cubacel, Silares (cruises), La Isla insurance company, as well as Sol Melia, NH Parque Central and French Accor, among others.

For the first time, US travel executives had the opportunity to exchange experiences, criteria and information with Cuban authorities and learn first hand what the Island"s possibilities are and the aim of the development of this important economic sector.