TOURISM - A METHOD FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF CUBA TO RAISE ECONOMIC DEPRESSION AFTER 1991 WHEN SOVIET UNION COLLAPSED Ruusa Tanhuanpää

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First steps in tourism..  In the beginning of 1991 when Soviet Union collapsed Cuba lost its crucial partnership and they had to find other means of creating incomes  Cuba faced serious financial difficulties and so called “special period” began  Cuba had to find new ways of boosting their economy and they decided on international tourism. This was a new approach because after revolution in 1959 there was hardly any international tourism in Cuba

Changes in Cuba due to the tourism  Cuba needed to do some allowances in its socialistic policies because of international tourism  1992 Cuba had to temporarily accept the US dollar as a legal currency to get valuable currency into the country  This was significant change in social structure: Cubans with dollars and Cuban without dollars  Cuba encouraged joint ventures with companies from other countries

Results due to the tourism  The government of Cuba strongly controlled private businesses by taking most of the profit imposing many fees and regulations. Hence the black market grew  Working among tourism was popular because tipping was one way to access foreign currency  Many educated people change their jobs and become taxi drivers, shoemakers, waitress or hairdressers and prostitution increased  Tourist were using hotel, beaches and other facilities that were not available for Cubans

“ I remember when I went to hotel with my family (not Cuban citizens) and with my mother, but my mother who is Cuban couldn’t stay. My mother is Cuban we were in Cuba, I have money to pay but it was impossible for my mother to stay in. It doesn’t make any sense. That is what has happened with many of us, we have the money, we have the right to go to hotel but our family doesn’t”

“ We used to be people that went time to time to restaurant to hotels, to resorts, to enjoy our own country and since that tourism boom it was impossible” “We [were] stopped and asked why we talked to foreigner … this for me was hard to accept - that I had to give explanation in my own country … that was … discrimination against me, not against foreigners so of course it’s not foreigner’s fault”

”Tourism Apartheid”  Cubans were not able to access the same facilities than tourists. In socialistic countries there is an attempt to keep tourists and locals separate  Tourist brought knowledge from the outside world to Cubans

On February 2008 the new leader of the country was Fidel Castro’s brother Raul Castro. He renewed the tourism policy so that locals are now able use same facilities than tourists are

“ People who are really interested to get to know people and to know Cuba, it always have a very positive effect, because I have known many, many persons who are so touched by the Cuban situation that most of the people that goes to Cuba get to know how things goes and those are the ones that come back, and those are the ones that really try to make solidarity movement to help”

Finally…if you won’t ….who will?