U.S. Tourists Remain Banned from Traveling to Cuba

We had the opportunity to talk to Mr. Carlos Vogeler during the recently-finished EUROAL show in Torremolinos, Madrid, and his first words referred to the America’s new tourism scenario after the resumption of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States, a matter that has brought about interest and concern among the Caribbean islands that highly depend on US tourism to maintain their economies.

According to Carlos Vogeler, the present situation with the thaw of relations between Cuba and the United States, after over fifty years of diplomatic interruption, turns out to be quite interesting, but there are federal obstacles that stop the flow of US tourists to the largest Caribbean island.

“Establishing diplomatic relations is a significant step, but we can’t forget that tourism travel from the United States to Cuba is still banned, and that’s to be clearly expressed so the whole world understands it. People are granted a permission to travel for twelve different reasons, but tourism is not on the list”, Mr. Vogeler underscored in an exclusive interview with Caribbean News Digital.

“The application of the twelve categories has actually been made more flexible, since they can be related to such fields as education, religion, culture, sports, several activities, and that situation has increased the number of travels to Cuba, but such category as tourism is still not authorized by the United States”, he said.

In the same breath, the economic embargo against Cuba is still in force, with legal implications for countries that work with Cuba, even sanctions applied to the banks and companies that operate in the Cuban market. From the travel industry standpoint, this is complicated because it limits the actions of potential investors and stops economic transactions. However, the WTO has been very clear on this matter.

“We cannot and must not say that we agree or not; what we can do and we actually do it is to put on the table the effects caused to the travel industry by this situation. Nevertheless, as an overall postulate, we are in disagreement with every element that restricts the people’s freedom of movement in terms of tourism”, the present regional director of the WTO for the Americas underlined.

Tourism security and the terrorist attacks that have recently affected several important destinations, such as Belgium and France, are matters that presently take most of the attention of WTO.

Mr. Vogeler thinks that having the travel industry as a target for terrorists is a highly worrying matter for the WTO.

“Before that situation our message is not to give way, be resistant, align security and crisis management policies where tourism is present, where both tourism and security ministers seat together,” Mr. Vogeler said. “Our message is to avoid falling into a backward situation of all our achievements among countries to facilitate the movement of people, and Schengen space is one of the best inventions ever. We cannot be panic-stricken due to these situations and we have to seek the proper security balance, since it’s the top priority.”