Jun 24, 5:45 PM EDT

Cuba's popularity concerns Caribbean tourism officials

By DANICA COTO
Associated Press

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- Caribbean tourism officials are pushing for a partnership with the U.S. government because of concerns that warming relations between the U.S. and Cuba will result in a significant loss of visitors to the rest of the region.

Cuba has seen such a surge in visitors that the fragile budgets of many tourism-dependent islands will be hit hard if they don't take action, Frank Comito, CEO of the Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Association, said Wednesday.

. . .

The report calls the opening of travel to Cuba for U.S. visitors "the biggest and most disruptive pebble to be dropped into the Caribbean pool in fifty years."

From January to early May, Cuba saw a 36 percent increase in U.S. visitors from the same period in 2014. It also had a 14 percent jump in other international arrivals, and Caribbean tourism officials say they expect those numbers to keep rising.

More:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CB_CARIBBEAN_CUBA_CONCERNS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-06-24-16-31-06

Foreign investment plays key role in Cuba's tourism
(Xinhua) 06:05, June 24, 2015



HAVANA, June 22 (Xinhua) -- Foreign investment is playing an important role in the development of Cuba's tourism industry, a senior Ministry of Tourism official said Monday.

Tourism authorities hope to have 85,000 hotel rooms available by 2020, and 110,000 rooms by 2030, with most of the new investment centered in the areas of Cienfuegos-Trinidad, North Camaguey, Las Tunas and Holguin, said Jose Daniel Alonso, the ministry's business director.

As many as 18 international hotel chains are currently operating more than half of the rooms available in Cuba.

Some 13 more resort projects are in the works through 2020, including one with 463 million U.S. dollars of Chinese investment and a golf course with 360 million dollars of British investment, Alonso said.

More:
http://en.people.cn/n/2015/0624/c90883-8910278.html

But I do feel bad for the hit Jamaica will take. They’re already hurting.

from a shop. The clerk wrapped it up for us. When we got home we discovered it was not the one we had bought -- it was some ugly, sloppy looking work. Nice job, Turks and Caicos. We'll never be back.

From what I have heard from other travelers, this isn't unusual. So it's not just gouging, it's outright fraud, too.

One of the steps these islands can take is to stop robbing people.

Cuba would be the safest and best destination of any country within a day or two cruise from FL.

There's massive irony in the acceptable capitalism-based economies asking for a government program to help them, because their customers are making a free choice to use the new alternative product that has been banned form the market for political reasons - and it's based on socialism.

Increased interest in vacation in Cuba should mean more tourists in general not a redistribution of a finite market

Most of these other islands have very little authenticity left. Or in the case of a place like Jamaica, most tourists are so far removed from the real culture of the islands they may as well just be in Boca Raton.