Tourists Are Flocking to Cuba in Droves 'Before the Americans Come' The Associated Press
go to original March 23, 2015

Tourists ride a double-decker bus backdropped by an iron sculpture of Cuban revolutionary hero Ernesto 'Che' Guevara on the facade of the Ministry of Interior in Revolution Square, in Havana, Cuba. (AP/Desmond Boylan)

Bookings to Cuba jumped 57 percent for one New York tour operator in the weeks after Washington said it would renew ties with Havana. In February, they were up 187 percent; and so far this month, nearly 250 percent.

The boom is just one sign that the rush is on to see Cuba now — before, as many predict, McDonald's claims a spot in Old Havana and Starbucks moves in on Cubita, the island's premium coffee brand.

The sense that detente will unleash an invasion of Yankee tourists and change the unique character of one of the world's last remaining bastions of communism is shared by many travelers flocking here.

"Cuba has a very authentic atmosphere which you see nowhere else in the world," Gay Ben Aharon of Israel said while walking through Revolution Square. "I wanted to see it before the American world ... but also the modern Western world comes here."

Outsiders may romanticize the "time-capsule" nation, but many on the island are ready for change.

Read the rest at NewsOK

Havana Cuba, What to Expect (Overlander.tv)

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