Cuba's new home-grown tourists

From NPR:

Cuba's Resorts Welcome A New Clientele: Cubans

by Nick Miroff

Cuba's President Raul Castro put an end last year to the country's so-called tourism apartheid that banned ordinary Cubans from staying at tourist hotels.

The change has brought something new this summer to the island's all-inclusive resorts: Cuban tourists.

With 12 miles of white sand beaches and more than 50 hotels, Varadero is one of the largest resorts in the Caribbean. Foreign companies partner with the Cuban government to run the place, and it's a bit like Cancun without the American college kids.

Varadero is still off-limits to American tourists under U.S. law, and for years it was pretty much that way for Cubans, too. Cuban workers cleaned the hotel rooms and staffed the restaurants, but the island's communist authorities wouldn't let them check in as guests.

That policy ended with reforms initiated by Raul Castro, who succeeded his ailing brother, Fidel.

Now, dozens of tour buses packed with Cuban vacationers are pouring daily into Varadero. For less than $200 per person, Cubans can buy a weeklong, all-inclusive package and finally claim their places in the sand alongside budget-minded Europeans and Canadians.

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Key quote no. 1:

"You know, this is how it works in the rest of the world. Either you can afford something or you can't," said Felix Beatoy, an actor at one of the resort hotels. "It didn't make sense that a Cuban wasn't allowed to stay in a hotel even if they had the money. We've fixed that — just like Cubans not being able to have cell phones. Now, if the offer's there but you can't afford it, that's a different problem."

Key quote no. 2:

Miami resident Karel Alemany left the island a decade ago, and while his family members seemed to be enjoying themselves by the pool, his thoughts were elsewhere, with the real Cuba beyond the beach.

"What about the other 11 million people that live here? What if they don't have someone else that comes to Cuba to take them to some place? How do they live, how do they eat? That's something that you got to think about," Alemany said.