Airbnb open for business in Cuba

The popular online home-rental service Airbnb will allow American travellers to book lodgings in Cuba, in the most significant US business expansion on the island since the declaration of detente between the two countries late last year.

For a half-century, the US trade embargo has blocked such businesses from entering the Cuban market. In January, however, the Obama administration loosened a series of restrictions on US business in an attempt to encourage the growth of the island’s small private sector.

Airbnb searches for “Cuba” will now turn up more than 1000 properties across the island, with 40 per cent in Havana and the rest in tourist destinations such as Cienfuegos on the southern coast. The company has been sending teams of representatives to Cuba for three months to sign up home owners, and plans to expand in coming months.

“We believe that Cuba could become one of Airbnb’s biggest markets in Latin America,” says Kay Kuehne, regional director for Airbnb, the website and mobile app that allows users to book rooms in more than one million private homes around the world.

One of the most developed and important elements of Cuba’s entrepreneurial sector is a network of thousands of privately owned rooms and houses for tourists. Starting in the post-Soviet economic crisis of the 1990s as homey, bed and breakfast-style alternatives to Cuba’s generally grim state-run hotels, “casas particulares”, or private homes, have expanded into an industry with options ranging from small apartments in central Havana to multi-room beach houses with top-notch food and maid service.

The Airbnb announcement is the latest in a series of US business moves into Cuba.

It could be the most significant development in terms of putting money in the pockets of entrepreneurs across the island and bolstering them in a stagnant state-run economy.

“I think this is going to help our business prosper, to definitely improve, not just private business, but everything here,” says Israel Rivero, who owns an immaculately renovated, pre-war apartment in central Havana.

He charges $US25 ($A33) a night a room, but the price will go to $US30 on Airbnb to cover fees and currency exchange costs.

Kuehne says Airbnb’s plans have been welcomed by Cuban and US authorities. Cuba has been wrestling with how to accommodate a surge of travellers since the announcement of detente. Trips to the island have been up nearly 20 per cent in recent months, mostly by non-US travellers, and many hotels are fully booked, particularly the few able to offer service close to international standards.

For the time being, non-US travellers will not be able to use Airbnb.

Because of continuing restrictions under the US embargo, the company’s Cuba listing will only be available to US travellers visiting under one of 12 US-government-approved categories of legal travel, ranging from professional research to religious activities.

While virtually all US travel to Cuba previously required individual licences from the US Treasury Department, the January changes essentially shift it to an honour system by allowing travellers to fill out a form asserting they are going for one of the approved purposes.

A major drawback for the Cuban private lodging business has been the difficulty of renting from overseas on an island with one of the world’s lower rates of internet use and a constantly malfunctioning phone system.

While dozens of websites such as TripAdvisor have listings for lodgings, most provide only phone numbers or email addresses for owners instead of the quick online booking and guaranteed reservations Airbnb will offer, as it does in more than 190 countries.

“Our plan is to make it substantially easier,” Kuehne says.

While that sentiment holds for travellers, owners still have to grapple with the lack of access to the internet across the island. Most will have to turn to pricey, state-run internet centres or hotel lobbies to check on reservations. And with much of the international banking system off limits to Cubans due to US sanctions, owners will depend on friends or business associates to receive payments from Airbnb in non-US bank accounts.

Collin Laverty, owner of Cuba Educational Travel, one of the largest businesses organising group tours to Cuba, says homeowners have already been investing in amenities such as central air-conditioning and improved water pressure to be able to charge far more than $US25 a night for basic service.

“You’re starting to see places that can compete with three- and four-star hotels,” Laverty says.

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