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LOS ANGELES TIMES

Cubans Find Tourism Is the Best Way to Make a Buck Resort
workers can earn more than doctors, and have a window on a
foreign life of luxury.

By Carol J. Williams Times Staff
Writer

September 6, 2003

CAYO COCO, Cuba - Communism failed to produce anything
resembling a workers' paradise in the factories of the old
Soviet Union or the rice paddies of Asia. But for those
employed at Cuba's palm-fringed Caribbean resorts, work is
relatively pleasant - at least compared to the drab daily
life in the rest of the country.

They spend their 40-hour workweek in the air-conditioned
comfort of high-end hotels, tidying elegant rooms for
foreign tourists, laying out lavish buffets and serving
fruit-festooned rum drinks at poolside.

They are paid twice as much as the average Cuban laborer
and earn dollar tips that give them much more buying power
than blue-collar comrades - or respected brethren in law,
medicine and education.

The only real letdown for those working in luxury tourism
is that they have to go home at the end of the day.

"It's very upsetting to see so much food being wasted when
most people on the mainland don't have enough to eat," said
one waiter at the five-star Melia Cayo Coco, located on
this island just north of Cuba's main island, nervously
watching over his shoulder to be sure no one overheard.

The contrast between the thriving tourism trade and the
living standards of most Cubans appears to be eroding what
little rank-and-file support remains for the ideals of
Fidel Castro's revolution. Today's proletariat is mostly
concerned with making money.

From the quartet of college-educated professionals
serenading lunchtime diners clad in wet swimsuits to the
bartenders mixing cocktails in their beachfront shacks,
Cubans say they are attracted to the tourist trade by the
chance to earn dollar tips.

Jesus Delgado, 30, who, like all Cayo Coco workers,
commutes from the mainland by bus 70 minutes each way, grew
up wanting to be a doctor. Instead, he waits on tables.

"Things are more expensive now, so money is more
important," he said, adding that his wife and mother also
depend on his $13 monthly income and as much as $10 a day
in tips. As a doctor, he would earn only $15 to $20 a
month.

In the dozen years since the Soviet Union collapsed and
billions in aid and oil subsidies to Cuba disappeared,
university enrollment has dropped by more than half and
many state workers are moonlighting in industries that
serve foreigners in order to earn dollars.

Castro signaled second thoughts in July on the growing
"dollarization" of the economy, ordering all state-owned
companies to turn over their dollars for convertible pesos.
Some industry analysts saw the move as an expression of the
Communist leader's concern that his ideals were being
corrupted by hedonistic tourists and the obsession with
making a buck.

"He sees what it is doing to the youth of the country. It's
creating a class of dropouts because young people have no
other hope for the future," said Art Padilla, a North
Carolina State University professor of management who
recently studied Cuba's tourism industry on a Fulbright
scholarship.

Padilla said he believes Castro reluctantly allowed his
government to resurrect tourism a decade ago, when the loss
of Soviet aid left other industries a shambles.

"Some may see a contaminating effect, but long ago they
made clear that it's a cost they're willing to accept,"
Philip Peters of the Lexington Institute, a scholar and
frequent visitor, said of the official Cuban view of
tourism.

Cuban officials say the average wage in the country amounts
to about $10 a month. Every Cuban also receives food
rations, which consist mostly of starches, free health care
and education. But the rations cover less than half of an
adult's daily caloric needs, and most food on the open
market sells at close to U.S. prices. As much as $1 billion
in family remittances sent by Cubans abroad tides over some
of the population. Those without foreign beneficiaries are
increasingly turning to the resort industry to make ends
meet.

The Cuban business weekly Opciones estimates that the
tourist industry accounted for 40% of Cuba's hard-currency
earnings in 2001, up from 4% in 1990.

The government earns additional millions in visa fees and
airport departure taxes - a sum that consultant Maria
Werlau of Chatham, N.J., said exceeded $50 million over the
last three years.

Tourism has overtaken sugar, rum, tobacco, nickel and even
foreign remittances as the No. 1 hard-currency earner. In
late June, Cuba received its millionth tourist for the
year, a month earlier than in any previous year. That puts
Cuba on track to host a record 2 million tourists this year
despite a crackdown on dissidents in March and the
execution of three hijackers a month later that angered the
sources of the most tourists: Canada, Mexico and the
15-nation European Union.

Some industry analysts say that service is shoddy. This
also hurts the future of Cuba's tourist industry,
particularly at budget "all-inclusives," where visitors pay
a flat rate for airfare, food, drinks, activities and
lodging. Increasingly, visitors are leaving with a
diminished impression of Cuba and some irritation at
tip-mongering.

"You're spared here. You don't see anything of the country
- it's just a resort," said Emma Sheppard, a honeymooner
from Brampton, Canada. "But when we went to Havana, we got
to see how people really live."

She said she was accosted by peddlers and beggars
throughout the day trip to the capital.

Although she found the resort staff caring, she was
disappointed by the monotonous food and the realization
that, although gratuities were supposed to be included,
maids, waiters and entertainers relied heavily on tips for
their income.

A veteran tour company executive from the Swiss-based
Globus and Cosmos network was even more critical after
conducting an undercover quality inspection at a resort in
Varadero, one of Cuba's main resort areas, where tipping
isn't allowed. She found the staff negligent, the rooms run
down and the food so bland as to be called tragic.

"The general attitude was that they just wanted your money,
nothing more, nothing less," the inspector wrote to the
U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, which commissioned
the audit.

Most Cubans aren't permitted in the resorts. But outside,
they hound tourists for money.

In Havana, a trumpeter seated on the Malecon embankment
playing the theme from "The Godfather" ceased in mid-note
to demand a dollar from a tourist who had just snapped his
picture.

A troupe of street artists on stilts parading noisily down
busy Obispo Street in the capital's old town shoved hats
and tambourines at anyone passing. In the quaint
iron-grilled doorway of a restored villa near the seaport,
three women decked out in colorful African dress smiled and
flirted with camera-toting visitors until they took the
trio's pictures. Then the women shouted in unison: "Hey
lady, hey mister, give me one dollar!"

Cuba legalized dollar holdings in 1993, but only paper
money is circulated. So the minimum tip or handout is a
dollar, and that has become the price of almost every
service, from luggage handling to mariachi serenades.

At a wooden gazebo in Cayo Coco where visitors get their
beach towels and make appointments for horseback riding,
salsa lessons or a massage, Lester Fernandez said he earns
$20 to $30 a week in tips on top of his $20 monthly salary.
Until a year ago, he had been studying dentistry.

"This way I can help my family more," the 23-year-old said.
He supports his grandmother and a brother who is in the
army.

Guests say they have been quietly encouraged by some resort
staff to make the drive across the causeway to the mainland
city of Moron to see "the real Cuba."

"I knew it was a poor country, but never realized to what
extent," said Russell Docking, a newlywed from Cambridge,
England. "Also the fear in people It's not until you come
to a Communist country that you see how much fear they have
to live with. It makes you appreciate how well you've got
it."

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