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The 12 Categories of Authorized Travel to Cuba
How To Travel
to Cuba Now
Trump’s new policies, with the declared intention
of ending individual people-to-people
travel, could shake up travel to Cuba. Here’s
what you should—or should not—worry about
By Suzette Laboy
• Family Visits
• Official business of the U.S. government, foreign governments,
and certain intergovernmental organizations
• Journalistic activities
• Professional research or professional meetings
• Educational activities and people-to-people exchanges
• Religious activities
• Public performance, clinics, workshops, athletic or other
competitions and exhibitions
• Support for the Cuban people
• Humanitarian projects
• Activities of private foundations or research or educational
institutes
• Exportation, importation, or transmission of information or
informational materials
• Travel related to certain authorized export transactions
Not long ago, Americans traveling to Cuba relied solely on
specialized travel agents and tour operators for help with
everything from booking flights to obtaining travel visas.
Then came President Obama’s loosening of travel restrictions,
along with an overnight explosion of Airbnb options across the
island, and Americans could suddenly book their own travel. The
result was a surge in travel by Americans to Cuba, from a 102,000
in 2013 to 287,000 last year—a figure that does not include travel
by 519,000 Cuban-Americans.
Now that President Donald Trump has announced his
intended policy to limit individual people-to-people journeys to
the island, the travel landscape may shift once again. While it is
unlikely that the numbers of U.S. travelers to Cuba will ever fall
to pre-Obama levels, the use of what are called Travel Service
Providers (TSPs)—agencies that hold special U.S. government
licenses for authorized travel to Cuba—may once again dominant
the terrain.
In the meantime, what you need to know is this: Until the
new regulations are written, published and signed into law, nothing
has changed. You can still travel to Cuba as an individual in
the people-to-people category—or any one of 11 other approved
categories. And those visas are available from airlines or cruise
ships when you check in, at a cost of between $50 and $100 each.
That doesn’t mean travel to Cuba is without its challenges.
Credit cards, except for those issued by Stonegate Bank in Florida,
or Banco Popular in Puerto Rico, are useless. Instead you need
to bring cash, which you can change into CUCs once you arrive
in Cuba. Fortunately, Cuba is one of the safest place to travel
anywhere in the world, with virtually no violent crime and even
less against tourists.
Finding a place to stay in Cuba is another part of the puzzle.
Thanks to a demand that exceeds the supply, hotel rooms
are high-priced and hard to come by in season, usually booked
months in advance. Rooms that would fetch $200 to $300 in
the U.S. can cost double that in Havana. The good news is that
the island now has tens of thousands of bed and breakfasts
that can be booked through Airbnb, and it’s not hard to find
rooms with showers and air conditioning that cost from $40
to $60.
“Cuba is a unique destination, and even with the 2015
liberalization there are still hoops travelers have to jump through,
both on the U.S. government side and the Cuban side,” said
Eben Peck of the American Society of Travel Agents. “The travel
infrastructure in Cuba (hotels, airports, access to money, etc.)
has suffered from a historical lack of investment and can present
challenges to U.S. travelers.”
If you do want a travel plan that’s a little more structured,
even thematic, you can take advantage of the approximately 300
TSPs in the U.S. with a special license from the U.S. Treasury
Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (or OFAC).
Using one of these agents, you can turn your random journey into
an adventure in ecotourism, for example, or a cultural jaunt in
Havana that mixes art, music and cuisine.
TSPs come in handy when the traveler doesn’t speak Spanish
and “is nervous about finding a place to stay and organizing their
program,” said John McAuliff, executive director of the Fund for
Reconciliation and Development and himself a coordinator of
people-to-people trips to Cuba. Airbnb’s English-language site
may help fill that void, he said, though many travelers still prefer
to stay in hotels and many online sites may not be as effective in
Cuba is a unique destination, and
even with the 2015 liberalization there
are still hoops travelers have to jump
through, both on the government side
and the Cuban side.”
Eben Peck, American Society of Travel Agents
terms of price and availability.
Typically, these TSP agents use a tour guide on the Cuba
side provided by the government tourism ministry. Sometimes
the TSPs will have their own representatives on the island as
well, and travelers can turn to independent tour guides who have
“found a niche,” though this is a grey area, since they are not
registered with the government.
The other big caveat is that tourist travel, per se, remains
banned under the U.S. embargo. Americans are required to travel
for other reasons, such as religion, business, or education, and
they are supposed to keep records of their travel (though no one
is checking, at this point.) They are not supposed to be relaxing
on the beach.
Continued to page 55
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