[LINK] "U.S.-Cuba thaw means holiday is over for Canadian tourists, experts say"

[rfmcdonald]

The Toronto Star shares Michelle McQuigge's Canadian Press article observing that, with the partial lifting of the American embargo against Cuba, that island country will no longer be a Canadian preserve free from the Americans.

Jury Krytiuk, head of the Cuban travel department at Toronto-area agency A. Nash Travel Inc., says an affordable vacation in a relatively pristine landscape will be harder to come by in the years to come.

Prices will surge as restrictions on American travellers ease, he said, adding Cuba will also have to adjust its tourism infrastructure to accommodate an influx of new visitors.

“There’s a limited amount of accommodation, so there’s going to have to be a lot of hotels built, especially in the cities, to accommodate people who want to visit,” Krytiuk said in a telephone interview.

Docking facilities will also be prime targets for expansion, he said, since the island is not currently equipped to house the mammoth cruise ships most commonly used in Caribbean travel, he said.

The result, he said, is that Canadians visiting the island 15 years from now are likely to have a very different experience than those enjoying a vacation there today.