When former United States President Barack Obama resumed diplomatic relations with Cuba in December 2014 for the first time since 1960, many tourism professionals in the Virgin Islands and other Caribbean jurisdictions warned that a renewed US-Cuba relationship could pose a competitive threat to the rest of the region.
But such fears are likely misplaced, according to a report published last month by the International Monetary Fund.
The report — titled Revisiting the Potential Impact to the Rest of the Caribbean from Opening US-Cuba Tourism — derived its conclusion primarily by analysing trends in the number of tourists who have travelled to the Caribbean and Cuba since 1995.
For instance, Canadians increased their travel to Cuba by 11.7 percent annually from 1995 to 2014, but also increased their travel to the rest of the Caribbean by 7.7 percent per year over that same period, according to the report.
“The tourism flows from Canada to Cuba and the rest of the Caribbean strongly suggest that it is feasible for a tourism source market to have a rapid and sustained expansion in tourist arrivals to Cuba while at the same time growing and benefiting all the other countries in the region,” the report states.
The report did note, however, that US territories like Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands are among the most “at risk” jurisdictions from an open Cuba because “visitors coming from the US have been diversifying away from the US market.”
The IMF report also stated that “niche” jurisdictions like this territory could remain mostly un-phased by an open Cuba, while “mass tourism” markets could suffer the most.
Trump presidency
However, it remains an open question whether President Donald Trump will continue the relaxation of trade and travel restrictions to Cuba that his predecessor began.
Mr. Trump has spoken little about Cuba since taking office in January, but the Republicans stated in their platform last July that a Republican-led government would only lift the US embargo on Cuba if the island nation’s government meets various demands, including the implementation of “an independent media, and free and fair internationally-supervised elections.”
While not speaking to public policy, a statement issued by Mr. Trump on Saturday to mark Cuban Independence Day contained similar rhetoric as the Republican platform, referring to the Cuban form of government as “cruel despotism.”
“The Cuban people deserve a government that peacefully upholds democratic values, economic liberties, religious freedoms and human rights, and my administration is committed to achieving that vision,” he stated.
Cuba President Raul Castro reportedly fired back at Mr. Trump on Cuban television, saying the US president’s statement expressed “the contradictory and clumsy pronouncements of the millionaire magnate-turned-president on issues of both foreign and domestic policy.”
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