Cuba travel boom — after long wait
By
Albor Ruiz
Read Spanish Version
aruiz@nydailynews.com
From
the New York Daily News
Recession?
What recession? At least when it comes to traveling to Cuba, business
is great.
"We
are going crazy," said Armando García, president of Marazul
Charters, a travel agency with offices in Miami and Weehawken, N.J.
"That’s a good thing."
Just
a couple of months ago, that wasn’t the case. Marazul Charters
employees had plenty of time for a midmorning break of dark and
strong café cubano. Then, on March 10, the Senate eased travel
restrictions, and President Obama followed suit by signing an
executive order making it official: Cuban-Americans could travel to
their homeland as often as they liked, stay for as long as they
wanted and spend enough money to treat the family to a weekend in
Varadero Beach.
Since
then, café cubano breaks have all but disappeared at Marazul
Charters in Miami, said García — there are just too many customers
to be taken care of.
"These
people had been waiting since 2004, the last year without draconian
restrictions," he said.
Business
is so good that Marazul Charters has raised its booking capacity from
369 seats in March to 480 seats in May, and all the way to 900 seats
in June, a whopping 150% increase.
"I
estimate that in May, 17 or 18,000 people will travel with Marazul,"
García said. "I’m talking only about us, but keep in mind that
there are seven other agencies booking flights to Cuba."
In
Weehawken, the story is different.
"We
get some more Cuban-Americans now," said Bob Guild, Marazul
Charters program director. "But most calls and e-mails come from
colleges, schools, cultural groups and regular Americans who think
all restrictions will be lifted soon and want to be among the first
to go to Cuba."
Marazul
Charters lost a big chunk of the New Jersey Cuban-American market
because during these past years, many people found other ways to get
to Cuba, Guild said.
"They
went through third countries, even though it was illegal," Guild
said.
In
one of those historical coincidences, Cuban-Americans have recovered
their right to fly to their home country almost 30 years after Carlos
Muñiz Varela, 26, the true pioneer of travel to Cuba, was murdered
in Puerto Rico.
The
Cuban-born Muñiz Varela founded Viajes Varadero in Puerto Rico,
where he had lived most of his life. It was the first Cuba travel
agency to open under a deal negotiated in Havana between Cuban exiles
and Fidel Castro in 1978, during the Carter administration.
In
December 1978, Muñiz Varela booked the first U.S.-Cuba flight.
Ninety Cuban-Americans landed in Havana’s José Martí Airport to an
emotional welcome from their expectant relatives.
Four
months later, on April 28, 1979, Muñiz Varela was gunned down
outside San Juan.
Those
were dangerous days in which any peaceful contact with Cuba inflamed
militant exiles and could provoke a violent reprisal. Twelve Cuba
travel agencies in Miami were attacked during the late 1970s and
1980s, and here in New York, a Cuban airplane was bombed at JFK.
Fortunately,
that senseless violence is a thing of the past.
"No
one is afraid anymore; many who never traveled before want to do it
now," García said. "Things are so different that even the
Cuban American National Foundation [CANF] is in favor of traveling."
It
is really a sign of the times that the powerful CANF, one of the most
politically rigid exile groups, is now an advocate for travel to
Cuba.
As
García said, "It is not the same dynamics; it is not the same
administration."
And
that’s a good thing.
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/05/07/2009-05-07_cuba_travel_boom__after_long_wait.html
