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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, danzón,
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
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