Cuba Ratifies Ban on Private Tourist Guides & Agencies

Photo: Ernesto Verdecia

By Ely Justiniani Perez (El Toque)

HAVANA Occasions – Minister of Labor and Social Security, Marta Elena Feito Cabrera, ratified the ban on practicing as a tour guidebook in the private sector. A letter dated December 28, 2021, was delivered this week to the 6 representatives of a huge team of tour guides who are calling for their activity to be granted lawful position as self-work. So much they are out of luck.

The letter procedures that travel organizations and tour operators “are linked with tourism solutions formulated and commercialized by Cuba’s point out tourism organization procedure and, according to the Ministry of Tourism’s plan, these are unable to be commercialized by all-natural persons, nor are they ready to get the job done as part of personal micro, tiny and medium-sized enterprises, cooperatives or as self-employed.”

This damaging response will come after nearly a 12 months since more than a thousand folks linked to the sector named for this exercise to be legalized. They arranged and sent petitions to the corresponding ministries and even engaged in conversations with officers from these institutions. Listed here is a summary of this process.

TIMELINE of a NO

February 10, 2021 the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection issued a record of 124 economic things to do that banned in Cuba’s personal sector such as tour operator providers and journey organizations. This led to a heated discussion from persons connected to tourism companies.

In the pursuing weeks, dozens of persons joined to the sector began to mobilize and deliver letters to the corresponding bodies. They also shared an on line petition for the legalization of personal vacation companies and the doc was signed by more than 1500 folks.

Could 20, 2021 In reaction, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security wrote a prepared response to a person of its signatories expressing that “with the new Social/Economic Technique to press the countrywide overall economy in the fascination of encouraging nearby development and production linkages among the general public sector and personal varieties of management, the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection, together with the Ministry of Tourism, are examining whether to permit these functions and other individuals relating to the tourism sector.”

June 7, 2021 the Cuban Republic’s Formal Gazette revealed Resolution 132/21 by the Ministry of Tourism (MINTUR), a new series of polices for “national travel agencies”.

Whilst the laws never explicitly state who can create these businesses it does understand that normal Cuban folks (such as the self-employed) can be “providers of tour services” that present “the sale of these in groups, courses, circuits, excursions or other tourist services” by means of national travel businesses. It does not make clear how this romance would perform but the absence of clarity in these laws was also a spark of hope for the more optimistic.

August 19, 2021 To quite a few people’s disappointment, the activity of journey businesses and tour operators reappeared on the banned listing yet again within a new sequence of decrees and resolutions that control private sector enterprises (like MSMEs, cooperatives and self-work).

September 22, 2021 Faced with continual complaints, officers from the Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Labor and Social Safety concur to fulfill with six reps from the Fb team Guías Turísticos por su legalización como TCP (Tour Guides wanting legalization as the Self-Employed), which had over 800 users at the time (currently, there are 1100). 

At this meeting, MINTUR requested the guides to hand in published undertaking proposals so they can “better recognize how significantly they want to go so they can discover the pink-tape that the activity “tour guide” would facial area as self-employment, to legislate and discover a remedy to this red-tape and giving them large-ranging and unrestricted participation,” in accordance to a summary of the assembly that was posted by the group’s customers. 

January 7, 2022 Group reps from Guías Turísticos por su legalización como TCP  who took section in the meeting with MINTUR and MTSS acquire a letter from Minister Feito, who ratified the ban on the practice of tour guides and vacation businesses, both as self-work things to do, as very well as MSMEs and cooperatives.

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