Travel: Business Commercial Trips to Cuba are an Increasing Reality January 10, 2001 Business Travel: Commercial Trips to Cuba are an Increasing Reality By JOE SHARKEY ast year, about 3,400 business travelers went to Cuba from the United States," said John S. Kavulich, the president of the U.S.Cuba Trade and Economic Council, a nonpartisan business group based in New York. "The biggest contingent was in January of last year during the U.S. Health Care Exhibition, which was a United States-government-sanctioned event that drew 97 companies and 300 participants" to Havana, he added. "The last time that many adults from the United States visited Cuba at one time was the Bay of Pigs in 1961. But this time, instead of guns, the Americans carried pieces of paper saying they could sell things. They were far more successful." Mr. Kavulich was being sardonic to illustrate the reality that many businesses, and more than a few business travelers, are beginning to appreciate. Despite four decades of an American trade embargo that goes back to darkest days of the cold war, global business is being done at an increasing clip in Cuba, which is rapidly modernizing its communications and service industries to accommodate it. And more Americans are getting in on the boom. For detailed, timely financial and trade information about current conditions in Cuba, I recommend consulting www.cubatrade.org. This is the Web site of Mr. Kavulich's group, whose members include major corporations that are among the 115 United States-based businesses now operating in Cuba under various special licenses, and other companies contemplating connections to the expanding Cuban market. Some business analysts estimate that trade between Cuba and the United States could reach $5 billion annually about 70 percent of it from American exports within five years of normalization of political and economic relations between the two countries. Which helps to explain why business travel, while still modest, is growing sharply. In 1994, about 500 Americans visited Cuba on business, the trade group said, compared with last year's estimated 3,400. Some business travelers return after having visited on leisure trips, which have been growing more rapidly. For the last five years, tourism to Cuba has been expanding about 10 percent annually, as more American-based airlines obtain licenses to transport passengers and cargo on charter flights from Miami and New York. Last year, an estimated 140,000 Americans visited Cuba, some of them participating in the growing number of culturally oriented group tours sponsored by museums and schools. Of course, foreign companies are not hamstrung by the Miami-exilebased blood feud that keeps the embargo in place. While American companies gingerly explore openings, careful not to be too public about it for fear of retribution, foreign companies are moving rapidly to exploit opportunities in telecommunications, tourism, retail sales and other growing areas of the long-stalled Cuban economy, which is still tightly monitored by custodians of the revolution wary of any drift back toward the pre-Castro days when the island's economy was under foreign corporate domination. There are currently 370 foreign companies involved in joint ventures with Cuban concerns, according to the trade council. Because of the embargo, which is modified occasionally as political
pressures ebb and flow, American businesses need special licenses for commercial activity in Cuba. By and large, purely American-owned business activity in Cuba doesn't go beyond trade shows, exhibitions and a range of allowable projects to identify and explore investment opportunities in agriculture, medical supplies, telecommunications, and other fields defined by the United States Treasure Department. The department has a Web site (www.treas.gov/ofac) that provides a detailed overview of the current regulations under the embargo. "There are groups of U.S. businessmen who are coming here quite regularly, but they are not able to close any deals; they're basically able to explore opportunities," said Philip Agee, a former agent for the Central Intelligence Agency who spends his time between Germany and Cuba, where he runs a Havana- based Web site, www.cubalinda.com, that provides tourism information about Cuba and allows potential visitors to book hotels and arrange package deals. "They're coming in groups all the time, but they're not able to do any business for well-known reasons," Mr. Agee said in a telephone conversation from Havana. "Cuba, as an island, has always depended on trade, and the tradition hasn't been lost" since the revolution, said Mr. Agee, whose name, like so much else connected to Cuba, evokes strong associations with cold war controversy. He quit the C.I.A. after 12 years as an agent in Latin America and in 1975 wrote a book, "Inside the Company: C.I.A. Diary," that made allegations of C.I.A. misdeeds and included a 22-page list of names he said were C.I.A. operatives. That led the United States to revoke his passport. Today, Mr. Agee said he was happy to promote Cuba as a thriving tourist and business destination. Last year, the Cuban government began a campaign to rejuvenate Havana's tourist spots. The number of hotel rooms has grown to more than 35,000 in five years, and many hotels are rapidly ...