• Submitted by: manso
• Travel and Tourism
• 12 / 05 / 2010

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Uzbekistan News.Net. Saturday 4th December, 2010. Cuba is hoping to grow its cruise industry on the back of growing demand and the arrival of a new ship using Havana as a home base.

The arrival of the 800-capacity Spanish cruise ship Gemini in the Cuban port of Havana Bay may be a sign of better days ahead for the Cuban cruise industry, which has suffered badly in recent years.

In 2005, Cuba was visited by 102,000 cruise passengers, but by 2007 that figure had fallen to 11,000 and kept falling through 2009. Cuba has never been a major Caribbean destination due in large part to the 1960s US trade embargo.

The Caribbean cruise market is dominated by US cruise lines, notably Carnival, and the US embargo forbids US companies from trading with Cuba and prevents ships that have visited Cuba from entering US waters for six months.

Cuba’s cruise industry was therefore set back when the Spanish cruise company Pullmantur was bought by Royal Caribbean Cruises, a US-based company. This vastly reduced the countries cruise business as Pullmentur was one of the only companies basing their cruises out of the Caribbean island.

UK-based Thomson Cruises has been using Havana as a home port for some of its Caribbean cruises, but recently announced it would be relocating to the Barbados in 2012.

However, the Gemini, run by Spanish start-up Happy Cruises, may replace the lost business and lay the groundwork for future expansion.

Cuba earned US $2 billion from tourist revenue in 2009, making the industry one of the primary means of hard currency for the isolated island government.

Source: www.uzbekistannews.net/story/715597