Urban Tourism and Development in the Socialist State

Havana during the �Special Period�

Andrea Colantonio

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9780815398813
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351143547
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Geography
• Index: Geography

After the collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1989, Fidel Castro announced the beginning of aSpecial Period for Cuba. During this time, the Cuban government has been obliged to look outward to other economies of the developed world, specifically targeting tourism as a mechanism for economic growth and development. This book examines the role played by international tourism in Cuba's institutional and economic restructuring and the country's reinsertion into the capitalist world economy. It provides the most comprehensive, in-depth analysis of the economic, social, environmental and political realities which have emerged in Cuba as a result of the redevelopment of urban tourism since the early 1990s. By analyzing the allocation of tourist resources and its impacts, the generation of tourism policy, and the politics of tourism development, it focuses on the political economy of urban tourism in Cuba and the balance of power between domestic and foreign stakeholders involved in the Cuban tourist industry.

Part I
Urban Tourism, Planning and Development

Chapter 1
Introduction, Aims and Objectives

Introduction

The demise of the Socialist bloc in 1989 has engendered structural changes in the economies of socialist countries, In the early 1990s, former socialist Eastern European countries began to abandon centralized planning systems and to embark upon liberalization reforms and outward-oriented development strategies which determined their transition towards a market economy, The institutional reforms promoted in these transitional countries mirrored political models provided by western liberal-capitalist democracies, Economic reforms often envisaged the promotion of export-oriented sectors according to neo-liberal development theories that were embraced by the main economic international organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

Other countries belonging to the bloc, such as Cuba and Vietnam, undertook more eclectic paths of institutional and economic restructuring, which aimed at keeping alive their centrally planned forms of economic and political governance, Thus, the outcome of the reforms embarked upon in such countries has been the hybrid transition toward a development model that blends awkwardly socialist planning and market principles, In this new model, political power and decision-making have been retained by the socialist leadership, while newly set up state corporations operate in 'emerging sectors', such as tourism and other non-traditional-exports, under market economy principles, Tourism, which was previously generally considered an unproductive economic sector by socialist governments (see chapter 3). has been rediscovered as a key economic activity by countries such as Cuba which have comparative advantages, including good climate and adequate environmental health conditions, Indeed, in the 1990s tourism has become the new pivot of Cuba's economic development and the main driver of its economic re-insertion into the global economy, As Hall (2001: 96) notes:

For...Cuba, continuing communism in the post-Soviet era required readjustment from semi-colonial client state status (in relation to the Soviet Union) to an independent status exposed to the rigours of the (capitalist) global economy, of which international tourism is clearly an integral element.

Afterthe collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1989, Castro announced the beginning of a " Special Period'¹ for the island, In the early 1990s the Cuban government was obliged to promote a series of economic and institutional reforms (that will be assessed in chapters 6 and 10) that in Castro's words were designed to save the revolution and not to transform it, Tourism promotion was therefore identified as a crucial economic tool to avoid the country's total breakdown, Ayala (2001) and Brundenius (2002) identify two main stages to the new tourism development strategy embarked upon in the Special Period, The first one extended from 1990 to 1994, when the development of international tourism was seen mainly as a temporary solution to the growing hard currency gap in the external accounts, The second stage began from 1994 onwards when it became clear that tourism was acquiring a driving role in Cuba's long-term development strategy.

In the early 1990s, however, both the Cuban economic planning system and the tourist industry were not ready to compete with the pre-existing mature Caribbean tourism destinations and new globalizing economic forces, Thirty years of isolation from economic globalization had led to a shortfall of managerial skills among generations of workers in the tourist industry, as well as within the various tourism planning authorities, Moreover, restricted access to financial capital represented an obstacle to financing the quality tourism infrastructures and facilities capable of meeting the ever more sophisticated standards that are required by international tourists.

The Cuban government acted on an ad hoc basis and grounded the new international tourism promotion strategy on four measures, which are explored in more detail throughout this monograph, These were: (i) economic and environmental reforms which encompassed Law 77/1995 that encouraged Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Law 81/1997, the Law of the Environment, which provided the environmental regulatory framework for the development of new activities; (ii) institutional capacity strengthening which entailed the creation of the Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology as well as the development of schools for the consolidation of human resources such as 'Formatur'; (iii) the establishment of State holding companies and tour operators ranging from healthcare to the transport sector and (iv) the establishment in 1996 of 67 'tourist poles' or zones at the national and provincial levels.

Five of these tourist growth poles are to be found in Havana as will be discussed in detail in chapter 3. As a result of the mix of national tourism policies and promotion strategies, Havana experienced a rapid increase in tourist arrivals and has became a major recipient of FDI in the tourism industry since 1989. Several new hotels have been built or refurbished through joint ventures, while others have been built by the Cuban government and contracted out through management agreements with foreign firms, The economic opening up and growth of the external sector have determined the embryonic establishment of a small private sector and brought about new 'stakeholders' and civil society groups within Havana's settings, Indeed, tourism has often been regarded as a critical catalyst for social change and political transition in both former and current socialist countries for reasons that will be explored in more depth in chapters 2 and 4.

Aims and Objectives

The main purpose of this book is to examine the nature and the key characteristics of Cuba's transition and to assess the role played by tourism in the country's institutional and economic restructuring, The temporal framework of the analysis is provided by the Special Period while Havana sets the spatial stage for the investigation, A further purpose of this book is to fill a gap on Havana that exists in the literature concerning Latin American cities, In fact, there are few books or journal articles that discuss the main urban issues of contemporary Havana, with the exception of a handful of noteworthy publications (for example Scarpaci et al., 2002; OTH, 2003a; INRH, 1997a; Segre et al., 1981).

It can be argued that today's Havana (and Cuba as a whole) is characterized by two diverging forces that are pulling the city in two different directions, One force is embedded in the Cuban leadership's socialist ideology and is driven by an inward-looking model of development which aims to preserve the social achievements of the 1959 Revolution despite the scarcity of financial resources, The second force is exerted and driven by the global economy and the tourism industry, both of which are pulling Havana into the world market economy and forcing the city to look outward rather than inward, This force, if not adequately managed, risks yielding negative social and environmental outcomes for Havana's environments and its inhabitants.

There are at least two themes that will be directly or indirectly addressed throughout this research, The first one revolves around the in-depth examination of the two forces discussed above and the assessment of the nature of the changes in urban management, tourism planning and urbanization pa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Dedication
• Part I Urban Tourism, Planning and Development
• Part II Tourism and Development in Havana
• Part III Tourism and Governance in Havana: Concluding Perspectives
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index