It may seem obvious, but U.S. travel service providers (TSPs) hoping to offer “people-to-people” (P2P) trips to Cuba should carefully study all relevant regulations issued by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Otherwise, warns attorney Jennifer Díaz of the Florida law firm Becker & Poliakoff, they could end up paying the consequences.

Díaz, who leads her firm’s Customs and International Trade practice, is also familiar with OFAC rules on Cuba. She cites the recent speed bumps Boston-based Road Scholar encountered when it recently tried to offer P2P trips to Cuba arranged through Wellesley, MA-based TSP Educational Travel Alliance Inc.

On July 18, Road Scholar announced with fanfare in the Huffington Post and elsewhere a P2P program in which U.S. citizens could take cruises originating in Miami and Jamaica with stops in Havana and other Cuban port cities.

“There’s nothing in the [OFAC] regulations or guidelines” that preclude traveling by shop on a P2P tour, Yves Marceau, Road Scholar’s director of international programs, had told re-porters. Up to 24 participants were to have boarded a cruise ship operated by a Canadian firm — with Canadians and Europeans comprising most of the 1,000 passengers on such cruises.

But only days after making the announcement, Road Scholar reportedly received an amended copy of its P2P license from OFAC, which spelled out that such travel to Cuba could not take place “aboard a vessel” forcing the company to abruptly cancel its cruise.

“We worked closely with our TSP and others to develop three new people-to-people educational ocean voyages, and were assured that our itineraries met OFAC guidelines,” Road Scholar spokeswoman Stacie Fasola told CubaNews.

That’s why “TSPs should always check with an attorney when involved in any travel-related activities to Cuba,” said Díaz upon hearing about Road Scholar’s aborted program.

“TSPs have to make sure that P2P tours remain consistent with U.S. policy in that realm, which focuses on educational exchanges not tied to a degree program, but under the auspices of a program that sponsors the type of exchanges that promotes people to people contact. Where Road Scholar might have ran into an issue is with the fact that the license you get for travel to Cuba, in conjunction with a P2P trip, is for travel that is ‘incident’ to engaging in educational exchanges.”

She referred to a posting on OFAC’s website, dated Mar. 9, 2012, which covers the promotion of P2P travel to Cuba:

“Advertisements for people-to-people travel that give the appearance trips will focus on activities travelers may undertake off hours after their daily full-time schedule of people-to-people activities may give an incorrect impression and prompt contact from OFAC that may potentially result in a license suspension while we investigate,” said the posting.

“OFAC does not authorize transactions related to activities that are primarily tourist-oriented, including self-directed educational activities that are intended only for personal enrichment, as provided in paragraph (c) of section 515.565 of the Regulations.”

Jeff Braunger, program manager for OFAC’s Cuba travel licensing unit, told CubaNews that “transportation [whether by bus, boat or taxi] in Cuba, to the extent that it does not detract from a full-time schedule of educational activities that will result in meaningful interaction between the travelers and individuals in Cuba and does not cause the traveler to exceed the per diem limit, is authorized by the OFAC people-to-people license.”

When asked why cruise ships don’t qualify for P2P trips to Cuba, he said:  “It is beyond the scope of current policy.”

Due to the very nature of cruise-ship travel in which the ship itself is treated by travelers as a destination a variety of OFAC-prohibited tourist activities often take place on them. from sporting activities, to parties and even gambling. This would fall outside of licensed U.S. travel to Cuba.

“It is quite possible that OFAC sees a cruise to Cuba as simply being too tourist-oriented and not travel merely incident to an educational exchange,” said Díaz. 

This isn’t the first time OFAC has rejected licensed U.S. sea travel to Cuba.

In early 2012, Fort Lauderdale-based Havana Ferry Partners LLC tried but failed to secure an OFAC license to provide ferry service from Florida to Cuba for those wanting to attend Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Cuba.

And Havana Ferry even hired a well-connected K Street law firm in its attempt to appeal OFAC’s rejection: Washington-based Arent Fox, whose senior policy adviser on Cuba issues was former Sen. Byron Dorgan.

Ultimately, that appeal was unsuccessful.

And that was a ferry service which has a far lower risk of deviation from a “full-time schedule” of P2P activities in Cuba than does a cruise ship.”

Road Scholar asserts that it began promoting its sea trips to Cuba after seeing other organizations arrange similar excursions.

“We were aware that OFAC granted a P2P license to [New York’s] Metropolitan Museum of Art (MMA) for an itinerary identical to ours, and that Semester at Sea was granted a license to bring their ship and staff to Cuba.”

MMA, whose cruise was reportedly to have taken place this past April, cancelled without commenting on why.

Semester at Sea, which lets University of Virginia students visit various ports via cruise ship as part of a study abroad program, already has OFAC approval for an itinerary that includes three days in Cuba this December.

“I would suggest they keep in close contact with OFAC’s Compliance Division, in order to stay abreast of any changes to the Cuba program, and to obtain answers to the questions which inevitably always come up,” said attorney and OFAC specialist Erich Ferrari, noting the confusion TSPs and others may face when dealing with licensed U.S. travel to Cuba.