Ecotourism and Sustainable Tourist Development

Cuba since the early 1990's has made a fundamental shift in economic policy toward hard currency endeavors such as tourism and trade. The shift was thought to come from the fall of the Soviet Union and the loss of billions of dollars in economic subsidies, but the changes towards development of tourism was completed prior to the fall of the Soviet Union. The present paper will discuss the history of the development of tourism in Cuba and the current state of tourism as well as provide insight into the future growth of tourism. The paper also discusses a project underway in Cuba to develop sustainability in tourism growth as Cuba moves forward. The current project funded by the World Wildlife Fund and working in conjunction with the Fundacion Antonio Nunez Jiminez del Hombre and MINTUR will be presented. This project addresses the process of developing sustainable tourism measures as well as development of ecotourism in 4 poles in Western Cuba; Vinales, Las Terraazas, Cienega de Zapata and Varadero, utilizing the Blue Ocean Strategy process, and will serve as a roadmap for a rollout of sustainable tourism to the rest of Cuba's tourism industry. In the early 1990s the collapse of the Soviet Union started the special period for Cuba. This was a period of economic hardship for Cuba and its citizens and the government was required to make serious decisions. These decisions included preliminary looks at currency and GDP. Decisions regarding shifting currencies to a new peso (de-dollarization) were discussed and rejected until 2003. The other major shift which was announced in the Cuban Economic Resolution in 1997, that called for a fundamental shift in production of the economy away from agriculture towards tourism which could bring in hard currency. This was allowed due to Ley 77 “Foreign Investment Act” in 1995, which allowed for foreign joint ventures to be introduced into Cuba. The law is designed to allow for up to 100% foreign ownership for the first time since 1959, but this is not found in practice. The current mechanism for tourism is through joint ventures with Cuba holding as much as 80% of the joint Changing Cuba/Changing World Ecotourism and Sustainable Tourist Development venture. Typically, the foreign investment involves management training and capital, while the Cuban partners put up the land, building material and labour. Through this partnership, currently more than 300 joint ventures exist. In the area of tourism, there are more than 50 joint ventures. The resultant shift in GDP has seen tourism grow from 6% of GDP (services and tourism) to nearly 69.3% of GDP in 2007, while agriculture fell from 75% to just 4.6% in the same period, however, this should be considered with caution as Cuba made a shift in the inclusion of medical services employed in other countries as part of the calculation of GDP, and this represents a greater contributor to GDP than tourism.