Travel to Cuba Increasing
Changes in Treasury Regulations

The past year has seen a tremendous increase in the numbers of U.S. citizens traveling to Cuba. Seen as the last "forbidden" travel destination as well as "the last Communist country," Cuba has acquired a certain cachet among U.S. travelers anxious to taste the forbidden fruit and to experience Cuba before it's overrun with U.S. tourists.

In May, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, keeper of the flame where Cuba travel regulations are concerned, finally specified the changes announced by President Clinton in January. The strict limits on spending for purposes of travel to Cuba remain, but licensing requirements have been eased: a specific license for professional research or attendance at an international professional conference is no longer required. As before, full-time journalists need no specific license; free-lance journalists must still obtain such a license but it is good for multiple trips. Specific licenses are still required for religious trips but anyone may qualify. Universities and schools may apply for licenses good for two years. Spending for tourist travel is still considered illegal.

CUBA Update Study Tours
CUBA Update study tours attempt to accommodate the serious traveler. Since mid-1998, the Center for Cuban Studies has arranged tours in several subjects, among them art and architecture, religion, public health, cultural history and socialist legality. All have helped to cement relations between individuals and groups in Cuba and those in the United States. Dozens of artists have traveled back and forth between the U.S. and Cuba as a direct result of Center tours; work-study groups have come about through relations with the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center in Havana; the Havana Development Group and numerous U.S. architects are working together on several projects; medical donations to Cuba are the inevitable result of public health tours, and in the cultural area there is more and more collaboration on films and in music.

Cultural Exchanges and Hollywood Stars
Although U.S. government regulations still prevent Hollywood directors from filming in Cuba, and U.S. actors from working with Cubans, more and more industry stars have dropped in to visit Cuba, most invited by the Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC).

Last summer, CUBA Update Editor Sandra Levinson arranged a trip for several Hollywood personalities, including actor Jack Nicholson and producer Mark Canton. (They were preceded by Alanis Morissette and Leonardo DiCaprio, among others.) Their whirlwind tour through ICAIC, the Abdala recording studio and late night music, the Partagas Factory, meetings with National Assembly president Ricardo Alarcón and ICAIC head Alfredo Guevara, ended with a three-hour chat with President Fidel Castro. The conversation between Nicholson and the Cuban leader ranged from discussions of history--both Cuban and Napoleonic--to the future of digital technology, U.S. policy toward Cuba, their mutual dislike of cell phones and movies. Minister of Culture Abel Prieto, Guevara and Felipe Roque (now Minister of Foreign Relations) were also present.

The December Havana Film Festival brought hundreds of filmmakers from throughout the world, and Hollywood sent its share: Director Randa Haines' "Dance with Me" proved to be one of the festival's most popular films; Mark Harris came with the excellent film he produced, "Gods and Monsters;" Francis Coppola showed up, as did Ethan and Joel Cohn and Frances McDormand. Jane Chaplin's first visit to Cuba included seeing the centerpiece ICAIC theater named for her father. Harry Belafonte was followed by crowds wherever he went, as usual.

Religious Groups a Popular Travel Option
Because the Treasury Department regulations make it possible for U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba for religious purposes without any special qualifications, hundreds of travelers have chosen this option, and have found themselves surprised and fascinated by the vitality of religious institutions in socialist Cuba.

CUBA Update has sponsored a number of religious tours in the past year. In fact, one of the most surprising incidents took place during the Center's last Chanukah tour. The group was invited to attend the last night of Chanukah party at the Patronato, the conservative synagogue in Havana. To everyone's surprise, President Fidel Castro arrived for the party, together with city historian Eusebio Leal, Reverend Raúl Suárez and Joel Suárez (directors of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center), and Felipe Rocque. They watched the children's performance for more than an hour and then Fidel took to the floor. It was his first visit to the synagogue and he carried on a dialogue with everyone present, asking questions about Jewish history and drawing parallels between Jewish and Cuban experience.

A February interfaith tour with a California group, all amateur softball players, concluded with two softball games: the San Francisco group, Les Lapins Sauvages, lost their first game, played against the journalists of the Prensa Latina team; but managed to pull off a win in the second, against television actors (helped by a few of the journalists, and even Harry Belafonte, who dropped by and pinch hit). Among the personalities in the group were San Francisco restauranteur Ed Moose and well-known graphic designer Dugald Stermer.

Millennium Trips Planned for Havana
Havana is proving a popular destination for seeing in the millennium, especially by European businesspeople who have fallen in love with the Cuban capital and its potential.

Not to be outdone, CUBA Update tours is planning six different seminar trips for December 27 to January 4: art and architecture, the performing arts, public health, socialist legality, Judaism in Cuba, and an interfaith religious seminar. Participants will stay in the new Parque Central Hotel in Central Havana and interspersed with the seminar meetings will be numerous recreational activities, and of course, a very special New Year's Eve fiesta.

For further information on the Millennium Trips, check out our Travel page.