Priceline Group has agreed with Cuba to make Cuban hotel rooms available to US customers via subsidiary Booking.com, becoming the first US online travel agency to strike a deal with the island state.
The deal came on the first full day of US President Barack Obama’s visit to Cuba and on the heels of US hotel firm Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide’s agreement with the Cuban government to manage and market three Havana hotel properties.
Booking.com would allow Americans traveling to Cuba to reserve and pay for rooms at a number of Cuban and foreign hotels, Booking.com Americas managing director Todd Dunlap said in an interview.
Americans previously had to reserve Cuban hotels through travel agencies or tour groups.
Booking.com would operate initially in Cuba only in Havana, Dunlap said. It planned to work with foreign firms already on the island. It was also working on deals with state-run Cuban chains.
The only major American lodging booking service currently available to Americans traveling to Cuba is online home-rental marketplace Airbnb.
Cuban tourism infrastructure has seen significant strain since US relations to the island warmed. Prices have surged for the island’s 63,000 hotel rooms, many of which are booked solid months in advance. Cuba received a record 3.52 million visitors last year, up 17.4 per cent from 2014. American visits rose 77 per cent to 161,000, not counting hundreds of thousands of Cuban-Americans.
Tourism to Cuba is still technically illegal under the US trade embargo. US travelers to the island are required to do so under “general licences” which permit travel for religion, family visits, cultural exchange, sports, and other purposes approved by the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control. On March 17 OFAC said it would allow individual people-to-people educational exchanges, as well.
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide on Saturday became the first US hotel company to sign a deal with Cuba since the 1959 revolution, announcing a multimillion-dollar investment.
Starwood will manage and market two properties in Havana and signed a letter of intent to operate a third.
Such deals would normally be prohibited under the US economic embargo of Cuba, but Starwood received special permission from the US Treasury Department last week.
Jorge Giannattasio, chief of Latin American operations, said the deals included a “multimillion-dollar investment to bring the hotels up to our standards,” making Starwood the first US company to commit major money to Cuba since Fidel Castro and his bearded rebels overthrew a pro-American government on January 1, 1959. This year scheduled airline services will resume despite a continued ban on tourism.
“The amount of travellers will skyrocket with direct flights,” Giannattasio said.
Starwood will operate the military-owned Gaviota 5th Avenue Hotel under its Four Points Sheraton brand, and the state-owned Gran Caribe Inglaterra Hotel under its Luxury Collection brand.