Those Photographs of Beyoncé and Jay-Z on the Streets of Havana Have Re-Ignited a Raging Controversy About the U.S. Travel Embargo Against Cuba

They were standard flashbulb shots by ordinary paparazzi of two married musical stars--Beyoncé and JayZ--strolling on the streets of Havana, and yet when they appeared two weeks ago in various U.S. newspapers, they touched off a political frenzy. Various members of Congress--most from South Florida--instantly claimed that the celebrated duo must have been illegally in Cuba, violating the U.S. embargo. And each such claim was accompanied by arguments that we Americans should continue in our resolve not to visit that forbidden tropical island 90 miles south of Miami.

Turns out that Beyoncé and Jay Z were legally in Cuba; they were clients of a licensed travel agency authorized to operate "people-to-people" tours to Havana, and were following--so it was claimed--the rigid, hour-by-hour itinerary of such licensed visits. Nearly a dozen U.S. tour operators are now selling such tours for outlandish prices--as much as $4500 for a mere week, including round-trip air between Miami and Havana--and the reason for the high price is the highly-organized nature of the tour. Participants must swear in writing that they will be carted from place to place to meet with members of various Cuban organizations who will be trucked in to meet with the exhausted tourists. Arrangements must be made through a Cuban intermediary earning top dollar, and the whole week is so meticulously planned and operated as theoretically to justify the $4,500 price. A company called Insight Cuba, headed by Tom Popper, operates the most numerous array of such tours, and they are selling well among affluent Americans.

These costly American-licensed tours of Cuba are in sharp contrast to the cheap air-and-land packages to Cuba offered in Canada, to Canadians, by various Canadian tour companies (like SunWing, Air Canada Vacations, WestJet, and others). I write a monthly round-up for The Toronto Star of travel bargains to all parts of the world available to Canadians flying out of Toronto, and I always start the list with Cuban packages, because they are the top value of all. Currently, for the amazing price of $660 per person, a Canadian citizen can purchase a package consisting of round-trip air between Toronto and Havana (including all government fees and taxes), airport-to-hotel transfers, a seaside Cuban hotel for seven nights, three meals a day for the entire week, unlimited drinks for the same, and unlimited non-motorized sea sports. All for $660 in Manzanillo de Cuba. Pricier packages to high-rise hotels on Varadero Beach, a short distance from Havana, cost around $860 per person, and again include round-trip airfare, beachfront hotel for a week, all meals and all drinks, and round-trip transfers between airport and hotel.

Read it and weep.

What's infuriating about our policy requiring highly-regulated, highly-limited, American tours to Cuba--ringed about with so many restrictions as to be unavailable for an affordable price--is that Cuba appears to be the only country subject to that treatment. Americans can presently travel, unregulated, to North Korea, of all places. Americans can go to Communist China, they can go to Vietnam, and to all sorts of other places having authoritarian governments. The next time you meet a defender of the travel embargo against Cuba, ask them how they explain the lack of such an embargo against North Korea.

What's worse is the abject failure of the policy. We have maintained a travel embargo against Cuba for more than fifty years--and it has had no impact whatsoever on the political situation there, other than to infuriate the citizens of Cuba and get their backs up. Those Cuban citizens are surrounded by tourists from every country in the world--Italians, French, English, Chinese, Brazilian, and more--other than from America. And those Cubans resent that blockade (I've seen that reaction in my own two legal visits (as a journalist) to Cuba in recent years). Moreover, countries from all over the world, especially the Spanish, are building hotels in Cuba, but no American companies are permitted to compete. A more loony policy you could not devise if you tried.

Anyway, I'm repeating myself. But the adventures of Beyoncé and Jay-Z have once again reminded us of the issue.