Do a Google search for anything related to Cuba, and an ad for Insight Cuba — which organizes and sells trips to the island — will likely pop up.

A division of the New York-based nonprofit group Cross-Cultural Solutions, Insight Cuba is among dozens of such organizations that have sprung up in the wake of President Obama’s 2011 decision to relax restrictions on American travel to Cuba.

These companies will keep proliferating unless the Washington political scene changes after Nov. 6, when Obama, the full House and one-third of the Senate are up for re-election.

“I would say we’re confident, but we do understand it’s a volatile situation,” said Tom Popper, president of Insight Cuba.
As a nonprofit promoting “purposeful travel” to Cuba, Popper obtained a one-year, renewable license from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control that lets him take groups of Americans to Cuba.

These OFAC-sanctioned tours focus on Cuban salsa music, packages to Havana’s jazz festival and trips to Trinidad and other Cuban colonial cities. Hotels, meals and transportation on the island are all included.

“Your days will be filled with hand-picked experiences, followed by nights of bonding with the local Cuban people and your fellow travelers,” promises Insight Cuba’s website.

Popper said he’s arranged 70 trips since the travel rules were relaxed and expects to organize 70 more before year’s end.

“To some it’s an experience of a lifetime to say, ‘I played the bongos with Cuban musicians,’” said Popper, whose packages are limited to 24 travelers and cost $1,795 to $4,098, not including airfare to and from Cuba.

GOOGLE HELPS INSIGHT CUBA BUILD BUSINESS

Insight Cuba has become the leading provider of U.S. authorized people-to-people travel in part because of savvy advertising techniques like Google Adwords, which uses keywords to target an audience.

It also helps that Insight Cuba has years of experience in people-to-people travel. In 2000, when President Clinton relaxed travel rules, it became the first nonprofit to obtain an OFAC travel license. But only three years later, then-
President George W. Bush tightened those rules, putting Popper out of business.

“It was a shame because these visits are not about politics, they are opportunities for Americans to learn about Cuba and for Cubans to get exposure to the United States,” he told us. “The trips are so enriching.”

Marcel Hatch, president of Cuba Education Tours in Vancouver, said 99% of those who buy his travel packages are U.S. citizens. As a Canadian company, Cuba Education Tours is ineligible for an OFAC travel license — meaning his American travelers must get individual permission from OFAC to join his tours.

Hatch’s tours are generally aimed at American teachers and focus on Cuba’s history and education system. But he also offers trips to music workshops as well as Cuba’s biennial arts festival, which he says promises “a cavalcade of gallery romps.”

Hatch told CubaNews that many of his travelers are professionals, like doctors, who qualify for licenses for the purpose of research.

“Even though Obama has opened travel, the economic downturn means anyone who travels would have to be a professional because they are the only ones who can afford it,” said Hatch, noting that he’s sent about 3,000 Americans to Cuba since last year’s change in travel regulations.

In that time, said Hatch, at least 30 Cuba tour organizations have sprouted up in the United States — about the same amount that existed before Bush’s crackdown.

“But these organizations had huge staff and overhead and when their business was cut by 90%, they folded,” he said, adding that there’s plenty of room for more companies that send Americans to the island. “There’s such a pentup demand for Cuba travel.”

EMBARGO BACKERS URGE RETURN TO LIMITS

However, that demand hasn’t been strong enough for some U.S. airports — including those in Atlanta, Chicago and San Juan — to sustain charter flights to Cuba.

Popper said the airports which do host new Cuba travel charters, like Tampa and Fort Lauderdale, don’t have the frequent flights he needs. As a result, his customers fly out of Miami International Airport, which has hosted
charters to Cuba for decades.

Embargo supporters in Congress want an end to purposeful travel and a return to the Bush-era limits. They say the trips authorized by OFAC now are thinly disguised Caribbean tourism vacations that bring the Castro government millions of hard-currency dollars and violate the embargo.

The policy has prompted Cuban-American lawmaker Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) to block the confirmation of Roberta Jacobson, Obama’s choice to head the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.

Yet it’s unlikely embargo supporters will be able to roll back the new Cuba travel policy while Obama is in office.

“We have support in Congress to do so,” said Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL), “but Obama threatens to veto any bill that changes the policy.”