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Tourism for Millionaires: Income for Millions
By Jorge Gómez Barata

Recently, the Cuban Minister of Tourism outlined a plan for building golf courses that could include residences to be sold to foreigners.  The interesting thing is that this idea—a normal procedure for any country whose key industry is tourism—is being subjected to “friendly fire” by people who view this sport, which they consider a hobby for millionaires, and the sale of residences as activities with an ideological potential for eroding the bases of socialism.

I know some visitors who consider the Cuban tourist offer to be not very competitive—not only in comparison with similar installations in the United States and Europe, but also with those in Mexico, the Dominican Republic and other countries.  However, they say, the main difference lies not in the hotels but outside them.

Unlike tourism in other countries, Cuba’s tourism offer consists mainly of beach vacations.  The Cuban hosts want visitors to enjoy their stay in enclaves consisting of hotels and other sleeping accommodations, with recreation, rest and entertainment handled through “extra-hotel” options, where Cubans work—and, therefore, have contact with them.

Such offers are practically nonexistent in Cuban cities.  For reasons that are more or less known and because the government cannot think of, create and direct everything, Cuba doesn’t have businesses with typical offers, the cafeteria and other products that are for Cubans aren’t good enough to offer to foreigners, and entertainment possibilities are minimal.

There aren’t many yacht clubs in Cuba, nor are there many Cubans who go yachting or sports fishing, and the tourist circuits don’t include roller or ice skating; horse, dog or car races; casinos; Cuban cruise ships; bull- or cockfights; polo; cricket; tennis; jai alai; and billiards.  There are few extreme sports. (WALTER—It said “deportes extremos”; how do you say this?  For my list) Nor are there any large amusement parks, and the Christmas, Easter, the Three Kings’ Day and other traditional celebrations aren’t celebrated in the way visitors are accustomed to.

This country—in which, thanks to the application of advanced social policies, its athletes are among the world elite—doesn’t have any attractive sports competitions for foreigners, and, even though it is acknowledged to be a cultural power, those possibilities aren’t exploited to serve tourism.  There aren’t any coherent policies for providing exquisite performances of ballet, plays or popular Cuban music.  There must be very few foreign visitors who pay to see our bolero,
danz
ón, ten-line country verse and son festivals.

It is true that—thanks, above all, to the talent and dedication of Eusebio Leal and his competent team and to the fact that appropriate policies have been drawn up that make tourist installations part of the community’s heritage—Old Havana is very attractive, and Varadero is one of the best beaches in the world, but this isn’t enough.  Havana—once a legendary city famed as the most elegant and sensual in the Caribbean—is more than its original nucleus, and, apart from Old Havana, is far from splendid.

Tourism brings out the limits of centralized policies and of the belief that culture and human relations can be administered.  It also reflects the difficulties created by the continuation of ideological stereotypes and the government’s limitations in managing entertainment, relaxation and pleasure alone, without basing itself on the community and on the collective imagination. (WALTER—It said “imaginario”) In addition, there are abusive criteria and arbitrary decisions regarding the relations between Cubans and foreigners, an even between Cubans who live in Cuba and Cubans who live abroad.

Paradoxically, when the authorities, pressured by economic needs, are becoming more flexible; getting rid of out-dated criteria and prejudices; and taking steps toward meeting economic, cultural and trade standards that are more or less universal, “guardians of the faith” who have no arguments other than anachronistic dogmas and more or less stereotyped phrases are raising their voices against a sport and against a whole category of potential clients.

Golf is a sport with balls, played in the summer in the open air.  It comes from Scotland, where, 600 years ago, it was created by shepherds who entertained themselves by using sticks to hit stones, trying to send them in the direction they wanted.  Over the course of time, rules, official balls and clubs (WALTER—It said “implementos”) appeared, turning golf into a sport, a game that is played all over the world and that, in recognition of its merits—which may be debatable—was recently included in the program of Olympic games.

Though it is true that golf is an expensive sport—as are its beautiful, ecological installations in bucolic, rural areas—baseball stadiums, tennis courts, cycling tracks and swimming pools are also expensive and difficult to maintain.  Except for soccer, it’s hard to find any really inexpensive sport.

Sailing, rowing, cycling, underwater fishing, scuba diving, shooting, archery and parachute jumping cannot be described as low-cost sports.  The fact that golf isn’t practiced on a large scale doesn’t make it any worse than fencing, tennis, billiards, synchronized swimming and other sports.

Because of the characteristics of the installations and of the game itself—which is played not only by athletes but also by people who simply love the game, including children, young people, women, the elderly and even people with disabilities—golf is not a spectator sport; it is more usual for it to be played than watched.  This, together with the specialized nature of the balls and clubs, give it an aura of exclusivity and elegance. [WALTER—It went on to say “que mal no le sientan” (that don’t do it any harm); I think we can leave this out]

Because golf courses are in relatively isolated places and requires moderate physical effort, it is a sport and entertainment that is appropriate for people who don’t want to or can’t compete in public; thus, it is the preferred sport of monarchs, religious leaders (including one Pope), presidents and other celebrities, including potentates.

 

As is true of nearly all sports, high yield and forms of practicing them that are governed by regulations go side by side with popular versions, such as those created by children who play soccer in a street or baseball in a vacant lot.  In Scotland, children play golf in the street and parks, breaking windows with their balls.  Cuba already has miniature golf courses. (WALTER—It said “golfitos”)

I think that civilian society, its participation agencies and the national parliament should legislate and establish rules and pressure the agencies in charge of tourism to develop a coherent policy rather than just isolated measures for developing tourism—not only for visitors from abroad but also for Cubans.

Perhaps, through agreements with local government and organizations, the tourist installations will someday create options that will allow local youngsters who belong to sports clubs to use the tennis courts and other installations—and even the golf courses.

As for housing, the anomaly isn’t that, in line with the laws now in effect, it will be sold to foreigners; rather, what is upsetting is that such offers aren’t made to Cubans living in Cuba or abroad who, through their work or other legal means, have acquired the resources for buying them.

Perhaps, some day, without renouncing socialism, it will be possible for Cuba to host an invitational baseball championship in which Havana’s Industriales will play against the New York Yankees; to hold boxing tournaments in which our champions will compete against other boxers at the world championship level; to have salsa, bolero and son festivals that will attract top performers of pop music from all over the world to the Cuban capital; and to have Cuba included as part of the Formula One circuit.

We used to have Varadero Festivals and May Salons; the New Latin-American Film Festivals are a great success, and the International Low-Budget Film Festivals of Gibara are well on the way to doing as well.  Why can’t tourism join these and other initiatives, drawing on the imagination and organizational ability of the artists, intellectuals, managers and other Cubans?

Where will the government get the money for financing the social policies now in effect?  How can a country that imports 40 percent of what it eats and in which health and education consume more than 40 percent of the national budget manage to keep afloat?  There aren’t many options, and tourism is one of them.  To provide good, efficient, non-degrading service to those who pay to rest and be entertained in legitimate cultural activities, whether or not they are millionaires, is one way of obtaining the resources needed for millions.

To attribute ideological connotations to a sport or to a sports installation and to reject potential visitors or clients because they are rich and may contaminate Cubans ideologically is just as absurd as to try to keep a whole nation in a glass vase. (WALTER—What in the world did he mean?  He said “dentro de una urna de cristal.”  This is supposed to be a punch line, but it fizzled, as far as I can see.)

Havana, August 31, 2010

Submitted by the author.

2

The “Golf Crisis”
By Guillermo Rodríguez Rivera

This made me think of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Nicolás Guillén.

Of old Ike, back from his years as Commander in Chief of the U.S. troops in World War II, dedicated to golf, his favorite pastime, and to repressing Latin-Americans who wanted a little more freedom—as in the case of Arbenz’s democratic Guatemala.

Nicolás, tongue in cheek, satirized his “little white Presidential ball,” that rolled “like a tiny planet” over golf course greens.  That was the beginning of the “golf crisis.”

Several comrades, beginning with Lohania Aruca, who wrote an open letter to Miguel Barnet, urging him to call a meeting of all the members of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) so we could rise up as a veritable “critical conscience of society” to take the serious Mexican newspaper La Jornada to task for having reported that Marrero, Cuba’s Minister of Tourism, had announced that 16 luxury golf courses would be built, together with residential areas for millionaire—preferably U.S.—golfers as part of tourism that, its promoters assume, will be very profitable.

Later, Comrade Aruca lamented that her letter had been published.  I don’t understand this: if it was “open,” it was publishable; that’s the definition of an open letter.  If it was closed, who opened it and made it known?

A few days ago, Roberto Fernández García dramatized the whole thing, going so far as to say the plan would mean “selling our souls to the devil.”

For reasons of ethics and principle—in spite of whatever our enemies may think—Cuba has renounced tourism based on casinos, gambling and prostitution, and everything that is tainted with drugs.  I wonder if promoting tourism on a few exclusive golf courses for people with a lot of money—so they can hit their little balls around and leave income for our country—is so serious.  Isn’t the tourism that often comes to our cities and to our young people accompanied by what we don’t want much more contaminating?

Gentlemen, we live in the real world, which is far from aseptic, and a few millionaire golfers who use a couple of miles of our island for playing golf—and who perhaps leave us some income for repairing our stadiums, schools and swimming pools—aren’t going to overthrow the Revolution or really pervert us.

Want to know something?  I’d love to eat lobster Thermidor, but I know that the income from the lobsters we sell allows us to buy or produce the more humble chickens and much more humble eggs that we eat in Cuba.

No Cubans have taken up arms to make millionaire golfers come and play golf in Cuba—but nobody who bears arms is going to be upset if they do.

http://segundacita.blogspot.com/2010/08/la-alarma-del-golf.html