Last summer, when the United States and Cuba reestablished official diplomatic ties, we gave you a guide on how to travel to Cuba before it becomes a tourist trap. Now with President Obama becoming the first American head of state to visit the island nation since Calvin freakin’ Coolidge, and with Starwood signing the first U.S.-Cuba hotel deal in decades, you’ll need this guide more than ever.
According to The Verge, Airbnb is opening all of its Cuba listings up to visitors, starting April 2. In addition, Starwood hotels just signed a deal to renovate and manage two hotels on the island. So, American corporations are definitely coming to the Cuban tourism industry. And like our guide posited, that could be the difference between rolling through Havana in a vintage car, or posing for a photo in said car that’s been permanently installed in the hotel lobby.
Lest you think that Airbnb will ruin Cuba’s “authenticity,” CBS News has a report that makes a case that the corporation’s way of doing things is actually in line with how Cubans currently receive tourists (“homestays” are already very common). The country has seen 3.5 million visitors since the normalizing of relations, but the island only has 63,000 hotel rooms. One tourist is quoted as preferring Airbnb, because it allows him to see the real Cuba: “In a hotel, I’m not going to have that opportunity. I’m going to take a tour…but I’m not going to get into contact with real people… the Cubans,” he said. A Cuban couple who lists their home on Airbnb says that they have opened up their space so that tourists can experience living with a Cuban family.
Authenticity is a vague and tricky thing. Isn’t a country always “authentically” itself, regardless of what that looks like? Isn’t the traveler’s longing for “realness” just a construct that we invented to serve our own pre-established ideals?
Still, if you want to see Cuba “the way it was,” you might think about booking that ticket ASAP.
