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While many in the U.S. are salivating at the
prospects of an open Cuba, there’s only so much that can be done at once.
There’s a lot of infrastructure that is
required to be handled before ferry service can start. The Cubans want to do the
ferry, the United States wants to do the ferry, but it’s not going to happen on
a fast track, It’s going to be done gradually.
It will be well into next year before any real ferry considerations are done.
That goes for cruise line operations as well. The reason for that is mostly on
the Cuban side, the infrastructure barriers have not been exaggerated.
This floodgate that is apparently trying to be opened is very much constricted
by the capacity of the country. If you don’t have any piers, except the
one that existed in downtown Havana, you can only have so many ships call at one
time.
So the capacity restriction of what the real world is in Cuba is going to make
things go at a very gradual, slow pace, and that’s not bad that it’s happening
that way. Cuban authorities are determined not to have a chaotic process
that reflects poorly on them.
Whether it takes one year or three years or five, it’s going to be the No. 1
destination in the Caribbean, so it just needs to happen in an organized manner.
It is no coincidence that while the U.S. is flashing every green light it can,
within the law, the approvals from the Cuban side are still pending.
At the end of the day these are their piers, their harbors, their products, and
they’re very protective of how they do things, they want to do it right, they
don’t want to look like they’re not ready for this. The Cubans are going
to decide who goes to Cuba, not the United States. |
