President Donald Trump’s new policy on Cuba travel has winners and losers: Group tour operators hope to sell more trips, but bed-and-breakfast owners in Cuba say they’re losing business.
Five of 12 private bed-and-breakfast owners in Havana and Cuba’s southern colonial city of Trinidad told The Associated Press that they received cancellations after Trump’s June 16 announcement .
“It’s contradictory that (Trump) says he want to help civil society, the Cuban people, but what he’s doing is hurting them, hurting bed-and-breakfast owners in this case,” said Tony Lopez, who rents rooms for $30-$50 nightly in a three-bedroom, 16th-floor apartment in Havana’s trendy Vedado neighborhood. Those canceling included two Americans worried about legal requirements, including documenting their spending.
“We get a lot of Americans. We’re alarmed,” said Eliset Ruiz, manager of a nine-room bed-and-breakfast in Trinidad. “We’ve had a lot of cancellations for June and July.”
Alex Bunten of Charlotte, Vermont, hoped to go to Cuba with his girlfriend in August “without the hassle of tour groups and schedules and such. We like watching the world go by, eating good food, not being herded by an umbrella-holding, annoyingly interesting tour guide.”