April
1, 2008
Cubans
can stay at hotels, but rates will deter most
Cuban leader Raúl Castro will allow Cubans to stay at island
hotels, but few can afford them.
By Frances Robles, Miami Herald
With the end of a government ban that was in place for at least
15 years, Cubans can now stay at island hotels, a largely symbolic
move in a country where a nice hotel room can cost about $200
a night -- the average annual salary for a state job.
Though not formally announced by the government, several hotels
reached Monday confirmed the end of the so-called ''tourism apartheid''
-- which prohibited locals from staying at tourist hotels. The
move represents new Cuban leader Raúl Castro's most significant
policy shift since he took office five weeks ago and comes on
the heels of other recent decisions allowing cellular phones,
appliances and computers.
The latest measure raises some hope that Castro will address more
of the litany of complaints unleashed at a series of nationwide
meetings held last year.
Even though most Cubans cannot afford to stay at the vast majority
of hotels, they had long fixated on the tourism ban as a prime
example of the inequities and hardships they faced under Fidel
Castro's regime. Not only were prices far out of reach, but Cubans
were not allowed to stay at hotels even if a friend or visiting
relative paid the tab, raising the concern that Cuba's self-proclaimed
quest toward equality was a farce.
''The only relative importance this has is that the government
is trying to respect -- or trying to look like it is respecting
-- the constitution,'' prominent dissident Vladimiro Roca said
by phone from Havana. ''This prohibition was unconstitutional
and showed that this is a tyranny.'' Roca said there is widespread
expectation that other prohibitions could be lifted in the coming
days, including the ban on car and home sales.
Castro held nationwide meetings last fall asking people to air
their gripes. Those prohibitions, plus the need for permission
to travel and the country's dual currency system, were among the
biggest sore points.
`TOURIST APARTHEID'
''Cuba will become like the Dominican Republic, Mexico -- or here
for that matter -- where everybody is allowed to the hotel, and
it's your ability to pay that is going to matter,'' said María
Dolores Espino, a St. Thomes University business professor who
studies Cuba's tourism industry. ``It's a sign that things are
changing to a more pragmatic view of how things should be. Is
it the end of the tourism industry's problems? Probably not. Is
it a positive step? You bet.
"It's the end of tourist apartheid.''
Cuba has about 47,000 hotel rooms and roughly 2.2 million visitors
a year. Tourism slipped in 2006, and last year the government
announced plans to build boutique hotels to lure more visitors.
Espino said lifting the ban could be a way to fill aging hotels
during the offseason by offering discounted prices to locals.
While many Cubans make about $20 a month, others have businesses
through which they can legally or illegally supplement their salaries.
Others receive remittances from relatives abroad or work for foreign
companies that pay higher salaries. Visiting relatives would now
also have the option of treating family members to a hotel stay.
It's unlikely a Cuban of any income range would pay what it costs
to stay at hotels such as Old Havana's Ambos Mundos, where a double
room is $173, or the swank Parque Central, at $221 for a single.
But many hotels offer packages, especially during the low tourist
season, that include lower rates.
''Not everybody has to stay at a five-star hotel,'' said a clerk
at the Ambos Mundos who declined to give his name.
" There are four-star hotels and three-star hotels. People
make their choices depending on what they can afford.''
Hotels contacted Monday said Cubans would pay the same rate as
everybody else.
Still unclear is whether the new measure also applied to private
homes licensed to rent rooms, which go for $16 to $32 a night.
Vicki Huddleston, a Brookings Institution scholar who ran the
U.S. Interests Section in Havana between 1999 and 2002, said Cubans
were gradually gaining access to more hotels, although they were
barred from spending the night.
She said U.S. diplomats met with Cuban dissidents in hotel facilities
and senior bureaucrats and army members also had access to some
hotels where they could mingle with tourists.
Cubans were also allowed to use some hotel facilities for special
celebrations, like a daughter's 15th birthday.
A full lifting of the ban was of ''considerable significance,''
she said, because it could increase Cubans' ability to interact
with foreigners.
Hotels contacted Monday said they received word about the measure
Sunday, but there had been no official announcement in the Cuban
media. The decision was first reported by the Mexican news agency
Notimex.
BEACH ACCESS
Reuters news agency reported Monday that Cubans will also be allowed
to rent cars and go to beaches once restricted to foreigners.
The U.S. State Department declined to comment while some critics
scoffed, saying letting Cubans stay in hotels amounted to superficial
change aimed at dodging more meaningful issues such as democratic
elections.
Miami Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a fierce critic of the Castro
government, called the lifting of the hotel restrictions "pathetic.''
''There are two ways of looking at this,'' said University of
North Carolina-Raleigh professor Art Padilla, who has studied
Cuba's tourism industry.
"Hotel
rooms at $200 a night would be what Cubans make over a long period
of time. But taken together, with the cellphone decision and others,
you could conclude that this is part of a trend."
"My sense is that as long as Castro and his brother are around,
these are cosmetic changes.''
Arizona Republican Rep. Jeff Flake, one of the most outspoken
critics of U.S. policy on Cuba, called it "really just window
dressing.''
''The reality is that the average Cuban citizen can barely afford
dinner, much less a mobile phone or a microwave or a stay at a
beachside resort,'' he said. "The U.S. ought to lift the
travel ban, not as a reward for good behavior by the Cuban government,
but rather as a tool to increase pressure on the Cuban government
to make reforms that are actually meaningful to average Cubans.''
Miami Herald Washington correspondent Pablo Bachelet contributed
to this report.
Copyright
2008. The Miami Herald. All rights reserved.
