Cuba Tour Operators - Don't Discard Those People-to-People Applications Just Yet

Cuba Tour Operators: Don't Discard Those People-to-People Applications
Just Yet
By Joe Pike | June 11, 2015

After the House of Representatives voted last week against relaxing
long-standing restrictions on U.S. citizens' travel to Cuba, the demand
for People-to-People trips to Cuba could be increasing.


If you're one of those tour operators who decided not to go through the
somewhat long and tedious process of applying for a license to send
People-to-People tours to Cuba because you thought travel to Cuba would
be fully legalized soon - think again.

For those who aren't terribly familiar with the program, the
People-to-People initiative requires Americans to take part in various
cultural experiences in Cuba, essentially, as the name implies, putting
them in direct contact with the people of Cuba with hopes of learning
about the way of life in the country. It was implemented by President
Clinton in 1999 and suspended by President Bush in 2004 before President
Obama resurrected the program.

When news broke on December 17 that the United States would soon be
loosening travel restrictions to Cuba, Travel Agent's first reaction was
to feel sympathy for all those tour operators who worked, in some cases
for years, to obtain a license to sell People to People travel to Cuba.
But after the House of Representatives voted last week against relaxing
long-standing restrictions on U.S. citizens' travel to Cuba, it's
apparent those licenses are still going to hold a lot of value perhaps
for years to come.

On the same day as the House of Representatives vote, Richard Sealy,
chairman of the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), told media and
tourism officials gathered at the Wyndham New Yorker hotel for the
closing press conference of Caribbean Week New York to curb their
excitement about restriction-free U.S. travel to Cuba.

Although Sealy says he was "looking forward to seeing Cuba fully
integrated into this whole system of offering tourism services," he did
want to remind those in attendance not to start planning their trips to
Cuba anytime soon since there were still some major obstacles to
overcome in fully lifting travel restrictions from the U.S.

"I think a little dose of reality needs to be realized here," says
Sealy. "(President) Barack Obama did all he could do as far as restoring
relations, but there is still this thing called Congress."

In the wake of the House of Representatives vote against relaxing
long-standing restrictions on U.S. citizens' travel to Cuba, Latour has
announced it will increase the number of its 2015 and 2016 licensed
people-to-people tour programs to Cuba.

Latour currently has a schedule of 38 departures of its
nine-day/eight-night tour programs to Cuba, from now through the summer
of 2016. Latour's Cuba programs are available with three differing
itineraries, with offerings tailored to general-interest travelers
("Hello Cuba!"); Jewish travelers ("Shalom, Cuba"); and PrideWorld's
"Cuban Pride" for LGBT travelers.

Travel Agent expects more operators that already have People-to-People
licenses, like Latour, to expand their programs, while other operators
that thought the application process was a waste of time could be having
second thoughts.

Source: Cuba Tour Operators: Don't Discard Those People-to-People
Applications Just Yet | Travel Agent Central -
http://www.travelagentcentral.com/cuba/cuba-tour-operators-dont-discard-those-people-people-applications-just-yet-51808