Marazul: 45 years in the Business of Travel to Cuba (Part II)
Changes in regulations on travel and remittances to Cuba continued throughout the Bush (Senior) and Clinton administrations, sometimes more flexible and other times more restricted, depending on the state of the countries’ relations at the time. Later, the Bush Junior administration brought even more aggressive changes, for Cuban Americans as well as other U.S. travelers.
From 2003 to 2004, George W. Bush, encouraged by some politicians in Washington, by Cuban Americans of influence in Cuban communities in Florida, and by his brother Jeb—who was governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007—began to limit the possibilities of traveling to Cuba.
In 2003, OFAC eliminated the People-to-People travel category, the main category after family travel. Marazul continued helping U.S. travelers interested in going to Cuba to apply for specific licenses within the categories that were still legal.
The following year, in July 2004, once again at the request of the Bush administration, OFAC announced new travel restrictions on family visits. These cruel regulations required that passengers request and obtain specific licenses for family travel, which was limited to once every three years. Adding to the cruelty, these licenses could only be requested to visit immediate family members—visiting aunts, uncles, and cousins was not allowed. This was basically a re-definition of the concept of family that is so important in Cuban culture.
Marazul began to assist individual Cuban American passengers in requesting licenses to travel every three years. The volume was great, and in the beginning the license process took months. OFAC had to increase staff at its Miami offices to handle family visit requests. These were difficult times for families, considering the waiting time for a license and the relationship restrictions.
In addition, there was no emergency provision in the regulation; they had to wait three years to travel again. In order to make flight reservations and board a plane to Cuba, they were required to have the OFAC license physically at hand. This was a great setback for the family unification process that had begun in 1979.
Specific licenses for visits to immediate family members were required for nearly five years and issued only once every three years. Barak Obama improved this sad situation during his first year in office. In early 2009, his administration revoked the specific license requirements and established a new general license for family visits every 12 months.
The general license meant that travelers did not have to request or wait to obtain specific authorization to travel. They only had to sign a sworn statement saying they were visiting an immediate family member and that they had not travelled in the last 12 months. The family relationship was no longer limited, travelers could visit aunts, uncles, and cousins as immediate family members. The volume of passengers increased tremendously, especially because many Cubans who had not returned to the island since they had emigrated began to travel.
With respect to travel by non-Cuban Americans, the Obama administration began to relax the restrictions for travel under different categories. By 2013, twelve travel license categories had been defined. Besides the general family visit license, the categories included journalism, professional research, religious activities, and artistic performances.
A dramatic change in travel to Cuba from the U.S. began with a surprising announcement by Barak Obama and Raúl Castro on December 17, 2014. The beginning of a normalization process in relations between both countries followed secret negotiations that had been going on for months. It included an exchange of important prisoners between Cuba and the U.S., which brought joy, resentment, and surprise to many on both sides of the Florida Straits. By the summer of 2015, both countries had officially opened their respective embassies in Washington DC and Havana.
The Obama administration also authorized certain U.S. airlines to fly directly to Cuba with regularly scheduled commercial flights. American, Delta, and others had been flying to Cuba for years on flights chartered by Marazul and other companies. During this new period, the main airlines requested authorization from the Department of Transportation to operate routes on scheduled flights from several cities in the U.S. to several cities in Cuba. These regular flights had not been in operation since 1961.
The multiple options and the flexibility for travel under different categories triggered a significant increase in the number of flight passengers with land programs and hotel reservations.
Additionally, U.S.-based cruise ships were authorized and began to sail to Cuba with thousands of passengers under the People-to-People general license. These cruises began in May 2016 and, in little more than a year, became the travel route for over 50% of U.S. (non-Cuban American) passengers.
In 2016, President Obama travelled to Cuba with this family and was welcomed with respect and affection by the government and the people. This was the first such visit by a president of the United States since Calvin Coolidge visited Cuba in 1928.
Obama’s opening of travel from the U.S. occurred while tourism to Cuba from other countries also increased, mainly from Canada and Europe. State tourist facilities faced a great demand, as did those of the private entities authorized by the government to establish and operate restaurants, bars, lodgings, transportation, and other services.
Government investments in the tourism infrastructure—which began in the early 90’s after the collapse of the socialist camp—were sufficient to endure, albeit with difficulty, the increase in demand, mainly because cruise ship passengers did not require hotel accommodations. As for the private sector, these businesses proved that they could develop quickly if the government allowed them to purchase supplies directly from independent providers. Many of these businesses operated with capital from relatives outside of Cuba.
Donald Trump’s presidency arrived in January 2017 with an extremely hostile attitude towards Cuba. In just a few months, OFAC redefined and eliminated legal categories of travel to Cuba from the United States. Despite these changes, Marazul continued helping passengers to travel legally on family visits or to participate in educational, academic, professional, religious, health-related, and cultural activities.
As mentioned earlier, by February 2017 regular airlines dominated the market and the agency had ended its charter flight operations. With the new reduction in passenger categories and without its own chartered flights, in 2017-2018 the agency began restructuring to reduce costs and streamline resources. This process was completed in March 2019 with the decentralization of the company. Two separate operations were established:
- Marazul Tours, Inc. in North Bergen, NJ, and
- Marazul Miami Travel, Inc. in Miami and Hialeah, FL
Both are currently operating.
Another drastic change on the part of the Trump government came as a surprise. On June 4, 2019, without notice or time to accommodate passengers with reservations, the administration banned cruise ship travel to Cuba. The news brought chaos to the cruise ship industry and among passengers who had booked travel. Additionally, OFAC eliminated the People-to-People general license.
In Cuba, the cancellation of cruise ship travel caused serious economic impact on state tourist facilities and authorized private businesses. According to Cuban government figures, from January to March 2019, 258,000 U.S. passengers had travelled to Cuba (not including family visits), and approximately 55% of them had arrived on cruise ships.
As if the problems brought by the Trump administration on the Cuban tourist industry were not enough, the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, exacerbating pre-existing problems and affecting the influx of tourists from other parts of the world.
On January 11, 2021, a few days before the end of his presidency, Trump’s Department of State designated Cuba as a “State Sponsor of Terrorism,” which worsened the country’s economic crisis. Inclusion in this list brought new sanctions against the island, among them the cancellation of financial transactions by international banks that feared sanctions by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. The Trump administration imposed more than 240 additional sanctions in its blockade against Cuba.
The Biden administration did not take significant steps to neutralize the cruel sanctions imposed by Trump. Today, the Cuban people’s economic situation is critical. With Trump winning a second term in recent elections and with his designation of Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, the future of travel to Cuba from the United States is unforeseeable.
