Cuba authorizes private travel agencies in new economic opening
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, Oscar Perez-Oliva Fraga, speaks at a press conference in Havana on Thursday. The Cuban Council of State published a decree giving foreign companies approval to hire employees directly without going through state agencies and to open bank accounts abroad without prior authorization from the Central Bank of Cuba. It also establishes that the private sector can create travel agencies. Photo by Ernesto Mastrascusa/EPA
Sept. 4 (UPI) — Cuba has taken another step in its economic opening by authorizing private companies and other non-state operators to run travel agencies, while also easing rules for tourist transportation and foreign investment.
An official resolution, published Thursday, establishes that travel agencies no longer will be state-run only. Cuban non-state businesses (such as small and medium-sized private companies) and authorized foreign companies operating in the country also can can run them.
The change was made possible by a July decree that removed travel agencies from the list of activities barred to the private sector. The new resolution puts that into practice, laying out the specific rules.
The new agencies will be able to design, organize and sell travel packages, excursions and other travel-related services, but they must first obtain a license from the Tourism Ministry and meet the requirements set out in the resolution. The measure replaces and repeals two 2021 resolutions that had separately regulated domestic and foreign agencies.
The same package of measures expands private and foreign participation in other tourism activities. State companies, non-state businesses such as cooperatives and small private firms, and so-called “foreign investment vehicles” already established in Cuba will now be allowed to provide tourist transportation services.
That does not mean any foreign company can enter Cuba from abroad to operate tourist transportation. It must be one of those investment vehicles already authorized and set up on Cuban soil.
The new rules also make it easier to work as a tour guide, allowing guides to operate as self-employed workers rather than only as agency employees, though they will still need training and a license from the Tourism Ministry.
Also under the changes, joint ventures, wholly foreign-owned companies and parties to international economic association agreements will be able to hire Cuban workers and foreign permanent residents directly. They may still use state employment agencies if they choose, but they are no longer required to.
The new rules also allow companies to pay workers bonuses in foreign currency, and let joint ventures and Cuban investors in international economic association agreements open bank accounts abroad.
Another part of the opening relates to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. The law creates a new category, “private company,” for businesses with more than 100 employees, and sets no maximum size for them.
It also allows Cubans living abroad and foreign permanent residents in Cuba to become partners in private companies, and lets those companies seek authorization from the Foreign Trade and Investment Ministry to import and export directly, without relying on state intermediaries.
According to the Cuban government, the reforms are part of a package of 176 economic and social changes announced in June, aimed at reviving an economy battered by shortages of foreign currency, fuel and basic goods, deteriorating infrastructure and persistent problems in the electrical grid.