American tourists in Cuba: Is the communist country a forbidden or a tainted fruit?

Abstract

Americans are the majority of tourists in the Caribbean, but the US embargo against Cuba prevents almost all American tourists from visiting Cuba. This study uses mixed methods to examine a group of American tourists' destination image of Cuba before and after a tour in Cuba. The American tourists in this study described Cuba as a forbidden fruit, a desirable destination that Americans are not allowed to or at least should not visit. On the positive side, travelling to Cuba was seen as a scarce opportunity that has the allure of the prohibited and the attraction of viewing communism from a previous era. Conversely, the image of Cuba was also tainted by the history of political antagonism with America and associated concerns about tourist safety, cost, and a limited market place. However, actual and potential changes in Cuba are likely to heavily impact the destination image in the near future.

Insight into American tourists’ experiences with weather in South Africa

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Planning and Preparation for Cruising Infrastructure: Cuba as a Case Study

“…If tourism planning is well implemented, tourists' receipts have the potential to bolster efforts to preserve and clean up the UNESCO world heritage area of Old Havana, and the return to the U.S. practice of allowing visits to Cuba to be of a cultural/research nature, might assist in preserving cultural awareness. There is evidence that even when U.S. policy is changed, should it be relaxed in the future, American tourists have a strong interest in Cuban culture as a forbidden fruit [48]. Should this happen, it is important for adequate protections in the form of planning and resource management be employed to protect both the UNESCO sites and Cuban natural resources.…”

How are tourism businesses adapting to COVID-19? Perspectives from the fright tourism industry

“…This method of analysis was chosen in order to classify the themes and determine their meanings by three researchers. Emergent coding was utilised, broadly following processes outlined in Haney et al (1998) and used in other tourism studies ( Halpern and Regmi, 2013 ; Wilson and Látková, 2016 ; Kim and Madhuri, 2019 ). First, the three researchers individually examined each press release and determined some general patterns (broad themes that related to the study aim).…”