Nearly 30 Groups Have Been Authorized To Bring Tourists To Cuba

Since the Obama administration loosened restrictions on Cuba travel, nearly 30 groups have been authorized to offer people-to-people exchanges. The first trips leave in August.

BY MIMI WHITEFIELD.MiamiHerald.com. Travel providers and other groups are scrambling to secure licenses and organize people-to-people exchanges in Cuba after the U.S. government relaxed restrictions and decided to allow a wider variety of Americans to visit the Caribbean island for the first time in 7 1/2 years.

So far, the Treasury Department has issued nearly 30 licenses to organizations that say they will provide “purposeful travel,’’ which will allow Americans to reach out to everyday Cubans in “support of their desire to freely determine their country’s future.’’

Although Cuba-Americans can now travel freely to the island if they receive a visa from Cuba and travel is allowed for other Americans who fall into a limited number of categories, the United States has barred people-to-people visits since the end of 2003 when former President George W. Bush reversed a policy begun during the Clinton administration.

Insight Cuba, a company that ran people-to-people exchanges prior to the rollback on such travel, looks like it will be first with the new people-to-people exchanges. It plans to send its first four groups to Cuba on August 11. A clock on its website ticks down the days, hours, minutes and seconds to departure.

Groups ranging from the Harvard Alumni Association to luxury travel provider Abercrombie & Kent — it pitches its trip as “Cuba: The Forbidden Isle Revealed’’ — to Witness for Peace also are ready for Cuba travel.

Cuban-Americans and others with a Cuban visa have been able to travel to the communist island since 2003 when president Bush repealed a Clinton policy allowing more open travel, but for everyone else this is a trip they've had to wait until now to make.

There are no shortage of people lining up to make the trip.

The Oct. 26-Nov. 1 Harvard trip, which promises to “unravel the richness of Cuban culture” and includes a stop at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana to discuss U.S.-Cuba relations, is waiting list only. A&K, which will be working with the Foundation for Caribbean Studies — the nonprofit that actually holds the license — began advertising last week for 13 trips it plans between September and next April. All have already sold out.

“We knew there would be interest, but this is incredible,’’ said Jean Fawcett, an A&K spokeswoman. “We’re taking names for a wait list and are planning to add more trips in 2012.