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(yè)者及專家便就當(dāng)?shù)鼐频陿I(yè)開發(fā)與融資的機(jī)遇與挑戰(zhàn)進(jìn)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(qū)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(yè)者和投資商紛紛開始計(jì)劃進(jìn)軍古巴市場。
在“古巴：發(fā)展與投資機(jī)遇”民宿大會座談小組會議中，古巴方面的專家就當(dāng)?shù)鼐频臧l(fā)展及運(yùn)營的機(jī)遇與挑戰(zhàn)問題與酒店業(yè)者進(jìn)行了談話。
機(jī)遇
新倡導(dǎo)團(tuán)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(shù)已經(jīng)非�？捎^，而一旦美國解除了對古巴的旅游限制，這一數(shù)字還將顯著增長。目前，美國公民已被允許以12種理由進(jìn)入古巴，包括教育、美國政府公務(wù)及新聞業(yè)。
詹姆斯·威廉斯還表示，“古巴通行狀態(tài)得到了緩解，但旅游仍為一項(xiàng)禁制。盡管如此，去年古巴依然是加勒比海地區(qū)第二大旅游勝地，或者說國際旅游目的地。我們預(yù)計(jì)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(xiàn)在正在談?wù)摰氖枪虐陀謺黾?50萬至三四百萬的美國游客。”
古巴酒店容量已幾近達(dá)到峰值，人們正快速嘗試著建造更多的酒店。古巴境內(nèi)，對美國游客存在的“龐大的、潛在需求”以及整體的旅游動態(tài)變化使當(dāng)?shù)鼐频甑慕⒓肮芾碜兊孟鄬θ菀�。古巴大使館經(jīng)貿(mào)辦公室公使Ruben Ramos Arrieta也對古巴存在眾多機(jī)遇一事表示認(rèn)同。他指出，“古巴酒店業(yè)是第一個(gè)從1980年代起便開始對外國投資開放的行業(yè)，所以我們擁有打過25年交道的外國同行。如今，古巴……正在轉(zhuǎn)變，經(jīng)濟(jì)活動發(fā)生了變化。”
挑戰(zhàn)
戰(zhàn)略性度假服務(wù)總裁David Oliver指出，隨著機(jī)遇而來的便是風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。因?yàn)楣虐褪忻袷芙逃潭冗_(dá)到100%，當(dāng)?shù)鼐频陠T工期待擁有好的薪資水平和更好的生活質(zhì)量。“古巴人知道自己擁有什么，他們擁有一項(xiàng)珠寶，只需稍微進(jìn)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(rèn)為玩桌上到處都散布著可以輕松拾起的錢財(cái)。”
據(jù)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(jìn)行協(xié)調(diào)，但因?yàn)槿藗儾恢篮螘r(shí)會產(chǎn)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(zhàn)。威廉斯還指出了其它關(guān)鍵性風(fēng)險(xiǎn)問題，這些問題在美國和古巴雙方業(yè)務(wù)中均存在。
“對于古巴來說，一個(gè)非常獨(dú)特的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)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(guī)體制。你要面對美國的法律制度，這項(xiàng)制度正以有效的速度放寬限制，但依然是一個(gè)隨時(shí)變化的目標(biāo)……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(yè)務(wù)在古巴的運(yùn)營變的更為容易，然而目前正有一輪（總統(tǒng)）選舉……這將進(jìn)一步帶來不確定性。”詹姆斯·威廉斯稱，古巴已經(jīng)經(jīng)歷了一些主要的、且相當(dāng)重要的經(jīng)濟(jì)變革。
“他們提出了一種現(xiàn)代的外國投資法案，他們創(chuàng)造出了許多激勵(lì)措施，并且更加積極和開放地吸引外國投資，然而，因?yàn)樗麄冋诮?jīng)歷自我在古巴的部分改革完善或更新過程，這仍是一個(gè)變動著的目標(biāo)。所以確實(shí)存在這樣的問題，你需要（花時(shí)間）去分析一種情況，這可能不會是從現(xiàn)在（從今天）算起的六個(gè)月，可能是從現(xiàn)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(fā)展的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)很小。“此刻，你擁有古巴近66,000個(gè)房間中的65,000個(gè)房間，其中約45,000個(gè)房間由外國公司及合資企業(yè)管理……這意味著在古巴超過75%的房間在同外國同行進(jìn)行業(yè)務(wù)往來。”