Cuba Prepares for 'American Tsunami' of Tourists

HAVANA, Cuba, May 7, 2009 — -- Cuba's magnificent Morro Cabanas fortress has stood guard over Havana for centuries while its dungeons below grimly played host to doomed prisoners, both ordinary and political.

Travelers never fail to gaze in awe at the huge stone structure and its lighthouse high up on a rock cliff to the left, the city on the right, as they enter Havana Bay from the sea.

One of the fort's many cannons still sounds at 9 o'clock every evening. In the past it announced the closing of the gates of the once walled city. Today it carries on the tradition, complete with colonial-era dressed soldiers and drummers, torch lights and town criers -- all for the tourists' pleasure. Locals often use the cannon shot to set their watches.

This week, the fort played host to Cuba's annual tourism convention, which unfolded within the fortress walls, complete with tropical dancers, carnival troops and performing children. Tour operators from more than 50 countries watched videos of the island's attractions and haggled with their hosts over blocks of hotel rooms.

Pirates and European fleets no longer threaten from the north, but one could imagine lookouts waiting for the first glimpse of an American cruise ship on the horizon, and imagine the cannon's salute as the first in half a century entered the bay.

With the United States and Cuba engaged in the first steps toward what many believe will be a new relationship after a half century of unremitting hostility, the prospect of an "American Tsunami" of tourists hung over the convention.

The Obama administration has already lifted all restrictions on Cuban-Americans visiting relatives on the island, and is under pressure to once more allow academic, cultural, religious and humanitarian exchanges encouraged by the Clinton administration but shut down by the Bush administration.

Antonio Diaz Medina, vice president of Havanatur, the state-run company that handles all U.S. arrivals, said the number of Cuban Americans visiting had increased 20 percent this year.

"The flights from the United States carried about 85,000 last year and so far this year arrivals have been about 40,000," Diaz said.