Cuba is hoping to lure tourists to come play a round
- Submitted by: admin
- Travel and Tourism
- Business and Economy
- 05 / 05 / 2010
Manuel Marrero said the island is on pace for its third straight record year of foreign visitors, and it hopes to continue expanding into the little-tapped golf market.
The island has only one 18-hole golf course.
Marrero said the government has green-lighted "real estate for tourist purposes."
Investment firms in Canada and Europe have proposed building golf courses coupled with luxury housing under long-term leases with Cuba's government. Endorsing residential zoning for tourism could be a first, albeit small, step toward making those projects a reality.
The decision would allow Cuba's "entrance into new segments and the realization of investments in areas with tourism potential that have yet to be exploited," Marrero said.
Many proposals in Cuba, which does not have laws protecting private property, fail to draw foreign investment. Some overseas businessmen bought Havana apartments but allowed Cuban girlfriends to live in them — violating rules barring islanders from doing so, said John Kavulich, senior policy adviser at the U.S.-Cuba Economic Trade Council in New York.
More than 1 million foreigners had visited as of the end of April, the most successful four-month span since Cuba began promoting large-scale tourism after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of its billions in annual subsidies to the island.
In 2009, Cuban tourism rose 3.5%. More than 2.4 million tourists came, mostly from Europe and Canada and many for short excursions. Tour operators offered steep discounts to keep them coming.
Although the U.S. government doesn't permit most of its citizens to travel to Cuba, the Obama administration has eased restrictions on Cuban Americans visiting relatives here. Those who come for family travel are counted as Cubans, not foreign visitors.
Source: AP
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