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"David P." wrote in message news:71f260ef-ea2d-4dec-a37d-7f78987a851bn@googlegroups.com...

A Sanction Worth Lifting in Cuba
By Mary O’Grady, 9/6/21, Wall St. Journal

Reprisals carried out by storm troopers & secret police against
participants in Cuba’s July 11 uprising have been widely condemned, including by Biden. But the international left is trying to help Cuba’s military dictatorship recover from this public-relations disaster by
blaming the U.S. for the island’s misery.

You wouldn't want to visit Cuba anyway. Cuba is a tourist hellhole. The service sucks, the amenities are gross, the place is thick with thieves and woman-gropers, the cost is high, and the alternatives are out there. In
fact, the Caribbean is loaded with pleasant, accommodating destinations well worth a tourist's dollar for a vacation. Taking a vacation at a communist military-run resort really falls more into the Gulag category.

How is this for tourist hell? Observers noticed Cuban customs officials rummaging through tourist luggage and taking what they wanted. When the tourists complained, they were thrown in jail: http://www.capitolhillcubans.com/2016/10/exhibit-how-obamas-cuba-flights.html

In fact, the place is a security risk because no professional or U.S. or U.S.-standard officials are involved. Mangy street dogs are what pass for security dogs in Havana: http://www.capitolhillcubans.com/2016/10/wapo-security-risk-at-cubas-airports.html

You can expect cockroaches in your breakfast cereal and tourist bulletin
boards say bring your own toilet paper: https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g147273-d550565-r200592377-Club_Amigo_Carisol_Los_Corales-Santiago_de_Cuba_Santiago_de_Cuba_Province_Cuba.html

Cuba's officials aren't even interested in making their foreign investors happy. American businesses have but one purpose, according to reports: to serve through their presence in Havana as bait to attract other sucker businesses, the better to rob them all.: http://www.capitolhillcubans.com/2016/11/us-companies-see-grim-outlook-in-cuba.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Why American tourists don’t want to travel to Cuba

Interest is waning a year after the country was opened up to U.S. visitors

By KARI PAUL
Aug 31, 2017

A flash of excitement about travel to Cuba after the U.S. eased prohibitions
on Americans visiting Cuba in 2016 may have lost some of its shine.

President Donald Trump announced earlier this year he would reverse the historic thawing of relations between the U.S. and Cuba made under the Obama Administration. The new actions are aimed to once again restrict travel to
Cuba and block business deals between the two countries.

When the country was first opened to Americans, there was a huge boost in travel there, but Americans were less interested in travel to Cuba this year than they were in 2016, a survey from insurance provider Allianz Global Assistance found. Some 76% of the 1,514 respondents said they were not
likely to plan a trip to Cuba in 2017 compared to 70% in 2016.

Only 2% of those surveyed planned to visit Cuba in the next six months or by the end of 2017, the same as 2016 despite a projected increase in travelers from the country’s ministry of tourism. It also found that 60% of Americans said “would not like to travel to Cuba” compared to just 58% in 2016.

Although some of these shifts may be expected after the initial flurry of interest, flight trends also suggest demand is lower than initially
expected, said Brian Sumers, an airline analyst at travel site Skift. “When the country opened up, just about every U.S. airline was obsessed with
getting as many routes into Havana as it possibly could — they thought it
was going to be a gravy train,” he said. “Now, as I understand it, a lot of the flights are empty.”

Indeed, the initial excitement about the formerly closed off country gave
way to moral dilemmas over food shortages and other problems caused by
tourism, as well as disappointment over limited working internet, lower
hotel standards, and lack of running water there. The Allianz study found
lack of travel infrastructure was a major cause of anxiety about traveling
to Cuba for 13% of Americans.

The slide in demand has led a number of airlines to reduce or completely eliminate flights to the country, including Silver Airways, a Florida-headquartered domestic airline that dropped all nine of its planned routes to Cuba. Frontier is dropping its Miami-Havana route by June 4, after costs in Havana “significantly exceeded our initial assumptions,” a spokesman told MarketWatch. Spirit Airlines will drop its last flight to
Cuba by June 1: “The costs of serving Havana continue to outweigh the demand for service,” Spirit Airlines SAVE, +0.16% president and chief executive officer of Bob Fornaro said in April.

Sumers suggested confusion over the approved reasons to go to Cuba is
keeping the average American visitor away still. As of May 2017, visitors to the country had to select one of 12 categories for their visit, which
include religious activities, humanitarian projects, “support for the Cuban people,” and journalistic activities. “You can’t go to Cuba to sit on the beach and have fun and that’s what Americans like to do on vacation,” he said. “Cuba is a bit of an outlier still — it is not easy to visit and for a
lot of people it’s still a pain. You have to really want to go there.”

While flights to Cuba continue to fluctuate, interest in trips to the
country remains high, according to separate data from travel search website Kayak, indicating that there is initial interest in flying there, even if
that interest doesn’t last. It found a 173% increase in Cuba searches in April 2017 compared to April 2016, and listed Cuba as the number one
trending destination heading into 2017. However, it’s important to note Kayak’s data reflects searches, not actual bookings, said vice president of marketing Dave Solomito. Plus, this jump in interest is likely to be
expected after former President Obama relaxed travel restrictions in March 2016.

“It’s possible that people are searching for Cuba travel to explore their options, but decide not to go once they learn of the travel restrictions or conduct their research on lodging options, which are still limited at this point,” he said. Hotels are expensive in Cuba, since there are so few of
them that meet U.S. standards, and while accommodation is cheap compared to
the U.S., many of the Airbnb listings may fall short of expectations in
other countries. (Airbnb, for its part, has said Cuba is its fastest growing market)

The uncertainty about Cuba travel comes after a record year for tourism in
the country: 4 million tourists visited in 2016, a 13% increase from 2015,
and the Cuban ministry of tourism previously projected a further increase to 4.1 million visitors in 2017. Madeleine Russak, communications director at Engage Cuba, a coalition of private companies and local leaders in favor of lifting the trade embargo on Cuba, said she expects the influx of tourists
to continue to increase, citing cruise lines increasing routes to Cuba and several airlines expanding their service there.

Cuba has a long way to go before it’s suitable for many high-maintenance American tourists. “This will come with certain expectations: Americans expect that cell phones will work, credit cards will work, and that access
to internet won’t be limited,” she said. “These expectations, along with the
monetary support American travelers provide for Cuban entrepreneurs in the tourism sector, will help foster the kind of change that will not only
further increase American interest in traveling to our island neighbor, but also benefit the Cuban people.”

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