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| Above, our ship, Majesty of the Seas, in Havana Port last year. Photo by Armand Vaquer. |
When President Obama re-established diplomatic relations with Cuba, he did so without getting any concessions out of the communist government.
That, plus the money Cuba was getting from tourists to fund dictatorships in places like Venezuela, led President Trump to tighten up tourism to Cuba. I managed to take a cruise to Cuba in April 2019 before the Trump clampdown took place two months later.
However, if Biden prevails and is inaugurated as president on January 20, things may go back to the way they were before the Trump clampdown.
Travel agents are happy that Biden "won" in November.
According to an article in Travel Weekly:
When Peggy Goldman, owner of InsightCuba, heard that Joe Biden had won the presidency, she felt she'd "died and went to heaven."
"I think that anybody in the travel space who's been looking for some direction to get out of this mess is celebrating," she said.
The "mess" Goldman was talking about is hinted at in her company's name. She and other Cuba specialists are hopeful that President-elect Biden will reopen travel to the island.
For cruise lines and airlines, hotel companies and tour operators, restrictions on travel to Cuba ordered by President Trump in 2019 crippled what had been heralded as one of the most exciting travel "openings" in the past 20 years after President Obama eased decades-old Cuba embargoes, including a travel embargo.
Now, those operators hope the president-elect stands by what they recall him saying when running for office.
"Biden said that he would go back to the thinking of the Obama administration, and we're hoping he's going to remember that," Goldman said.
To read more, go here.
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