• Submitted by: manso
• Travel and Tourism
• 11 / 13 / 2010

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By Rigoberto Diaz (AFP) HAVANA — Only 220 tourists got off the cruise ship Gemini in Havana Friday, but for Cuban officials it signaled the end of a three-year slump in a key sector crippled by a US company's duty to comply with Washington's economic embargo.

"Cruise line operations were extremely limited by the US blockade, and it's been three years practically since the country's seen regular business," Cubatur travel agency president Lester Oliva told AFP as he welcomed Spain's Happy Cruises ocean liner.

Oliva said the cruise ship's arrival with its 220 passengers from 11 countries, including 183 from Spain, signaled a boost to the tourist trade since the Gemini alone will bring "800 tourists a week" until the end of the first quarter of 2011.

By 2012, added the head of state-run Cubatur, the Gemini will be doing "regular business" with Cuba.

The news that Cuba is back in the cruise ship business was welcomed by all.

"In Spain we were really eager to see cruise ships return to Cuba, because it's been four years since we've last taken a cruise to the island. It's wonderful to travel here again," said Manuela Rojo, who paid 1,200 euros for her trip to Cuba.

Tourism is Cuba's second largest source of foreign revenue after medical services and cruise tours were a major component until they fell 89 percent from 2005-2007, with visitors plummeting from 102,440 a year to a meager 11,000.

The chief cause of the slump was US Royal Caribbean's purchase of Spain's Pullmantur company and with it the Holiday Dream cruise ship, which alone brought in more than 15 million dollars a year in tourist revenues to Cuba.

"The first measure Royal Caribbean took was to suspend operations in Cuba," a cruise company executive said at the time.

The economic embargo imposed by the United States on Cuba since 1962 includes a travel ban for all Americans to Cuba. Royal Caribbean was merely complying with the law when it struck Cuba from its list of ports.

Oliva said Cuba over the past three years has only reported "rather small cruise ship operations of one, two or three stops at most." He refused to provide figures, but said he hoped with the Gemini's arrival the sector would "gradually" recover.

"After spending a week aboard the ship, these clients spend the next seven days" on shore in Cuba, which has "a very important impact on tourism."

He said that Gemini will be joined next year by two other cruise ships, from Britain and Russia.

Oliva said Cuba can manage a number of cruise ships, with three other port facilities in addition to Havana's, in central Cienfuegos, Santiago de Cuba, in the southeast, and opposite a beach in the resort Isla de la Juventud.

Together, the facilities can handle up to 600 ships and 1.2 million tourists, who would bring in more than 125 million dollars a year, according to official estimates.

The Cuban Tourism Ministry (Mintur) last month said the island lost 1.1 billion dollars in revenue last year because of the US economic embargo and its ban on US travelers.

Were it not for the blockade, Mintur said 15 percent of the 13 million Americans who visit the Caribbean would travel to Cuba.

Many of these two million visitors would be cruise lovers, said Oliva noting that the majority of the world's cruise ships "are US property."

Last year, 2.4 million tourists visited Cuba, leaving 2.1 billion dollars in Cuba's coffers, according to official data. And tourism revenue increased by 3.5 percent from January to September, compared to the same nine-month period last year.

Cuban authorities unveiled a new five-year plan on Tuesday that calls for cuts in social spending while attracting private capital and boosting tourism. 2010 AFP.

Source: www.google.com/hostednews/afp/