Cubans for the first time can check into the island’s swank tourist hotels that until now had been exclusively reserved for foreigners, as President Raul Castro continues to soften a half-century of communist restrictions.
Citizens here also have access for the first time to rental cars, which until midnight on Sunday had been available only to foreign customers bearing foreign currency.
The moves are the latest reforms by Castro, who last month succeeded his brother, revolutionary icon Fidel Castro, as president, promising to modernise the Marxist state.
No official mention was made in state-owned media about the policy shift, although various hoteliers queried by Agence France-Presse said they had been briefed about the change.
“Yes, we received an orientation and [the new policy] now is in effect,” an employee at the Hotel Copacabana said.
Meanwhile, an official at the Cubacar auto rental company also confirmed the newly liberalised policy, which now allows payment in Cuban pesos at his establishment.
“Any Cuban who arrives at the hotel with their Cuban currency can rent a car,” said Cubacar’s Manuel Suarez.
Raul Castro has vowed to end “excessive” restrictions that have long been a despised feature of life among Cubans, who often have felt as if they were second-class citizens in their own country.
Human rights critics abroad often labelled the ban on Cubans’ staying in hotels a form of what they called “tourism apartheid”.
Cuba watchers hope the reforms are a prelude to the government’s ending much more onerous travel restrictions preventing all but a lucky few, relatively speaking, from leaving the island each year.
But critics pointed out that the reform is mostly symbolic, since most Cubans don’t have access to the foreign currency to put Cuban hotels and car rentals within reach.
“It’s a positive move, but the negative aspect is that the majority of Cubans don’t have the money to spend the night in a hotel,” Dariel Avila (17) said.
Raul Castro said when he took power that he would focus on addressing “basic needs” and said any changes would take place gradually, as he tried to “perfect socialism”. Since then, however, there has been a surprising flurry of reforms.
Last week, the government announced changes to the farming industry intended to increase production in Cuba, which imports 80% of its food, in the face of rising global food prices.
Also last week, the government lifted a ban on the use by ordinary Cubans of cellphones, which were a luxury mainly reserved for foreigners and government staff.
Havana has also lifted a ban on the sale of computers, televisions and video recorders. — AFP