Hoteliers and experts representing Cuba as a destination discussed the challenges and opportunities for developing and financing hotels once the embargo on travel from the U.S. to Cuba is lifted.
Even without a lot of tourists from the United States, Cuba is the No. 2 travel destination in the Caribbean. Now, with efforts underway to loosen restrictions on U.S. travel to Cuba, hoteliers and investors from the U.S. are planning their moves into the country.
Experts representing Cuba as a destination talked with hoteliers about the challenges and opportunities for developing and operating hotels in the country during the “Cuba: Development and investment opportunities” panel at The Lodging Conference.
The Opportunities
Cuba is already thriving when it comes to annual inbound tourists, and that number is expected to increase dramatically once restrictions are lifted on tourism from the U.S., said James Williams, president of Engage Cuba. Currently, U.S. citizens are allowed to travel to Cuba for 12 purposes, which include education, official U.S. government business and journalism.
“You have an eased travel dynamic, but tourism is still prohibited. Even with that, Cuba was the No. 2 tourism destination, or international traveler destination, in the Caribbean last year,” Williams said. “We’re expecting action this year in the lame duck session … on the U.S. travel ban, so you’re talking about estimates of (one and a half) to three to four million Americans additionally going to Cuba.”
Williams added that “the Cuban hotel capacity is already stretched pretty much to the breaking point, so they’re rapidly trying to build and grow hotels.”
“Huge, pent-up demand” for U.S. travelers in Cuba and a changing travel dynamic overall will make it easier to build and manage hotels there, Williams said. Ruben Ramos Arrieta, minister counselor of the economic and trade office at the Embassy of Cuba, agreed there are a lot of opportunities in the country. “I can tell you that the hospitality sector there in Cuba (was the first) to be open to foreign investment in the ’80s,” he said. “So we’ve had foreign counterparts in the hospitality sector for more than 25 years. Nowadays, Cuba … (is) transforming, and there is change in the economic activity.”
The Challenges
With opportunity comes risk, Strategic Hospitality Services President David Oliver said. Because the citizens of Cuba are “100% literate,” he said, hotel employees from the country working in the country are going to expect good wages and a better quality of life.
“The Cubans know what they have,” he said. “They have a jewel that needs to be buffed a little, but they know what they have and they’re not going to give it away, so you can’t assume there’s going to be money laying around everywhere on the table to be picked up easily.”
Panelists said people who live in Cuba are using old pesos while tourists are using new pesos. Williams said eventually there will be a harmonization of the two currencies, but this will bring challenges because people are unsure of when the change will happen and what the impact of it will be. Williams pointed to other key risks, on both the U.S. and Cuban side of business.
“One piece of risk that is very unique to Cuba is you have an evolving legal framework and regulatory framework on both sides of both players involved in any sort of transaction,” he said. “You have the U.S. legal regime, which is easing at a pace that is significant, but is still a moving target. … We’re expecting imminently another regulatory round of easing from the … the Obama administration, which will make it even easier for hotels and U.S. businesses to operate in Cuba, but we have an election coming up … that will create further uncertainty.” He said Cuba has “gone through some major and really important economic reforms.”
“They’ve put out sort of a modern foreign investment law. They create a lot of incentives. They’ve been much more aggressive and open to attracting foreign investment, but it’s still a moving target as they’re going through their own process of reform improvement or updating in Cuban parts,” he said. “So you do have these issues of, you’re going to be analyzing a situation, which may not be the exact same six months from now as it is today or two years from now or three years from now. That creates challenges.”
But Arrieta said the risks of investment and hotel development in Cuba are minimal. “You have, at this moment, in Cuba 65,000, almost 66,000 rooms,” he said. “And around 45,000 of them are being managed by foreign companies, by joint ventures. … That means that more than 75% of the rooms there in Cuba are doing business with foreign counterparts.”
【譯文】
自美國對古巴的通行禁令解除以來，以古巴方面為代表的酒店業者及專家便就當地酒店業開發與融資的機遇與挑戰進行了討論。
在過去，即便沒有來自美國的旅游者，古巴依然是加勒比海地區的第二大旅游勝地。如今，隨著美國逐步放寬了對古巴的通行限制，酒店業者和投資商紛紛開始計劃進軍古巴市場。
在“古巴：發展與投資機遇”民宿大會座談小組會議中，古巴方面的專家就當地酒店發展及運營的機遇與挑戰問題與酒店業者進行了談話。
機遇
新倡導團體“接觸古巴”（Engage Cuba）會長詹姆斯·威廉斯（James Williams）表示，古巴每年的入境游客人數已經非常可觀，而一旦美國解除了對古巴的旅游限制，這一數字還將顯著增長。目前，美國公民已被允許以12種理由進入古巴，包括教育、美國政府公務及新聞業。
詹姆斯·威廉斯還表示，“古巴通行狀態得到了緩解，但旅游仍為一項禁制。盡管如此，去年古巴依然是加勒比海地區第二大旅游勝地，或者說國際旅游目的地。我們預計今年（任期將滿）的議員議會將……針對美國的旅行禁令采取一些行動，所以你們現在正在談論的是古巴又會增加150萬至三四百萬的美國游客。”
古巴酒店容量已幾近達到峰值，人們正快速嘗試著建造更多的酒店。古巴境內，對美國游客存在的“龐大的、潛在需求”以及整體的旅游動態變化使當地酒店的建立及管理變得相對容易。古巴大使館經貿辦公室公使Ruben Ramos Arrieta也對古巴存在眾多機遇一事表示認同。他指出，“古巴酒店業是第一個從1980年代起便開始對外國投資開放的行業，所以我們擁有打過25年交道的外國同行。如今，古巴……正在轉變，經濟活動發生了變化。”
挑戰
戰略性度假服務總裁David Oliver指出，隨著機遇而來的便是風險。因為古巴市民受教育程度達到100%，當地酒店員工期待擁有好的薪資水平和更好的生活質量。“古巴人知道自己擁有什么，他們擁有一項珠寶，只需稍微進行拋光。但是他們知道自己擁有什么且并不打算將其拱手相讓，因此不要認為玩桌上到處都散布著可以輕松拾起的錢財。”
據座談小組成員透露，古巴居民仍使用舊的比索貨幣，而游客們則使用新的比索。盡管威廉斯稱最終將對兩種貨幣進行協調，但因為人們不知道何時會產生變化，也不知道將會帶來的影響，這將給投資者們帶來挑戰。威廉斯還指出了其它關鍵性風險問題，這些問題在美國和古巴雙方業務中均存在。
“對于古巴來說，一個非常獨特的風險在于，任何交易中的參與雙方都需面臨古巴不斷變化著的法律法規體制。你要面對美國的法律制度，這項制度正以有效的速度放寬限制，但依然是一個隨時變化的目標……我們迫切地期待從奧巴馬政府的掌控下獲得另一輪政策的緩解，這將使酒店及美國的業務在古巴的運營變的更為容易，然而目前正有一輪（總統）選舉……這將進一步帶來不確定性。”詹姆斯·威廉斯稱，古巴已經經歷了一些主要的、且相當重要的經濟變革。
“他們提出了一種現代的外國投資法案，他們創造出了許多激勵措施，并且更加積極和開放地吸引外國投資，然而，因為他們正在經歷自我在古巴的部分改革完善或更新過程，這仍是一個變動著的目標。所以確實存在這樣的問題，你需要（花時間）去分析一種情況，這可能不會是從現在（從今天）算起的六個月，可能是從現在開始算起的兩年或者三年。那樣才會帶來改變。”
但是Ruben Ramos Arrieta談到，在古巴投資和酒店發展的風險很小。“此刻，你擁有古巴近66,000個房間中的65,000個房間，其中約45,000個房間由外國公司及合資企業管理……這意味著在古巴超過75%的房間在同外國同行進行業務往來。”