U.S. Strides toward Opening Door to Cuba Travel

The United States took a major step Tuesday toward ending one of the quirkiest holdovers from the Cold War era: the effective ban on travel by most U.S. nationals to Cuba.

A group of U.S. senators on Tuesday introduced legislation that would let most Americans travel to Cuba. “We believe engagement with trade and travel is the best way to promote democracy” in Cuba, said Democrat Bryan Dorgan, one of the measure’s sponsors.

For decades U.S. citizens have been barred from spending money on the island, an effective travel ban. Only journalists, people on educational or sports exchanges have been allowed to travel to Cuba –the only country in the Americas with a one-party communist regime.

Washington imposed a full economic embargo, including travel restrictions, on Cuba in 1962 with the goal of crippling Fidel Castro’s government.

Experts have predicted scrapping travel restrictions could prompt a tidal wave of visitors from a country of 300 million just 90 miles away from Cuba, with an estimated one to five million Americans visiting each year.

Cuba, with more than 11 million people, recently has welcomed a total of more than two million tourists a year, mostly Europeans and Canadians. But following the U.S. senators’ move, officials in Havana said they have made no special preparations for a possible influx of U.S. tourists.