Jeri Clausing
For several years, Cuba topped just about every luxury travel bucket
list, and it became a hot, new destinations before it was really ready
to handle the influx of Americans that hurried to see the mysterious,
exotic island nation after the Obama Administration lifted decades-long
travel restrictions.
That changed dramatically after the Trump
Administration reinstated restrictions on individual travel and then
issued a travel advisory over mysterious health attacks on U.S. embassy
workers.
Now with that travel advisory eased, operators are saying that tourism from
America is slowly picking back up. And for those seeking authenticity
and an escape from the overtourism that threatened it a few years ago,
now may be the perfect time to put Cuba back on the list.
Silversea,
for example,
just announced it will bring its luxury ships to Cuba for 17 sailings in
2019 and 2020. Seabourn said earlier this year that it will head
there for a series of sailings in 2019 on the Seabourn Sojern.
Tour
operators say now is a great time to visit. It's not too busy. And
there's still time to see the island nation in its authentic state while
still meeting the State Department's people-to-people travel
requirements.
For luxury travelers averse to cruises or the group
excursions that have been set up by tour operators to meet rules
requiring eight hours a day of interaction with locals, Cuba Private
Travel offers agents one-stop
shopping for personalized, luxury-trip planning.
"To go to Cuba, to
be guided is the best way if you don't speak the language," said Johnny
Considine, who lives in Havana and has been helping agents plan private
travel to Cuba for years. He started his destination management company
for the British market in 2002, then opened a Miami office years about
seven years ago to help Americans plan trips legal under the
person-to-person requirements required by the Treasury Department.
His
company can set up everything from food tours to in-home visits,
meetings with local artists, musicians, fisherman and cigar makers along
with a host of other unique experiences that he said can all count
against the United States' required amount of cultural exchange
activities, but all as tours that "are not done in a regimented way."
He
recently attended International Luxury Travel Market North America to
meet with luxury agents and talk about how he can help them sell Cuba.
After
Trump took office, he said, American travel dropped very fast but, he
said, "it really was good for Cuba," which didn't have the
infrastructure to support such a fast and heavy tourism increase.
American tourism is picking up again, he said, "but it's not crazy," making now a perfect time to go.