An Airlift, Family by Family, Bolsters Cuba’s Economy (effects of lifting US travel ban)

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Economists and travel agents estimate that 400,000 passengers will fly to Cuba from the United States this year, nearly four times the number in 2008 — and more than at any time since the United States cut ties with the island some 50 years ago, they say. The visitors bring cash and huge bundles stuffed with goods that the embargo and Cuba’s economic woes have put beyond reach, from basics like milk powder, bouillon cubes and vitamins to luxuries like BlackBerrys and flat-screen televisions. Much of it goes into the living rooms and pantries of relatives, or to retailers who operate Cuba’s voracious informal market.

But the money and goods also feed Cuba’s budding private sector, the frail backbone of President Raúl Castro’s plan to reinvigorate the country’s feeble economy. Many entrepreneurs say they get capital and supplies from relatives abroad — colored beads from Miami for religious trinkets, pepper mills for restaurant tables, beautician’s wax.

Opponents of greater contact with Cuba say such openings simply help to keep the Castro government afloat. Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida whose parents are Cuban exiles, has called remittances and travel by Cuban-Americans “perhaps the single largest source of revenue to the most repressive government in the region.”

A State Department official, who requested anonymity because the policy is politically delicate, said that “additional people-to-people contact and enhanced economic independence from the state” helped to “undermine repression.” In an e-mail responding to questions, the official said such benefits outweighed concerns about “the Cuban government profiting indirectly.”

Full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/world/americas/12cuba.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all