Dream on.....Varadero beach is as big and pretty as our Boca Chica. The DR has many story tale beaches, as well as over 60,000 first class hotel rooms.
Planning and execution take two years, construction two or three, and not many investors would want to finance new RE investments and new hotels, in a recessionary market, just recovering from financial turmoil.

If the Embargo is lifted, we would struggle just for a couple of years until we learn how to compete with them, it's human nature, we need to feel that we are on the edge of the precipice to give the best of us...At this moment our tourism is not competing against the rest of the Caribbean islands (Cuba included), but with Mexico...Cancun and the Riviera Maya is what I consider our biggest competitor.

No ....................................a thousand times no

Yep! u r exactly right. It will hurt the D.R., but I do not believe the D.R. will cease to be the number one tourist spot in the Caribbean. Cuban's infrastructure is terrible. It would take years to correct that problem. I visited cuba for 3 days last year and it was like living in the 1970s. I was ready the leave the first day I arrived.

I think not Gene, The curiosity of Cuba alone will lure millions of people from all over. People who will want to see it before it changes and before a transformation.

Millions of people will jump on the oportunity of a legalized trip as long as its affordable. in addition companies "plan" long term so any investment in cuba would come from the careful analysis of the next 5-10-15-20 years. These people use very complex statistical programs to make these decisions. Investors are not risk averse and they know the recession will not last forever. So investing today may be best financially while its cheaper to do so knowing they can always rollover there cost into the future, Then there is the reality of being the last one to jump on the train.

If the embargo is lifted it will produce pro and cons for DR. DR will have to compete vigorously for foreign investment in construction tourism technology food etc, or risk loosing it to Cuba.


It will be a wake up call. It is sad but the reality is Dominicans running the show are to stupid to even imagine the possibilities.

I agree with the extensive comments made by the individual under the Havana skyline. If the embargo were to be lifted, Raqul and Fidelo must be out of power, preferably out of Cuba because any aid directed to the Cuban people must likely have been intercepted by the government as my friend has pointed out.

Qbozo better tlift his rating he is rapidly going down the crapper

Need someone sane in the White Houe - only country in the World that does not allow travel to Cuba!
S.

I agree with the gentleman who wrote the extensive comment under the skyline. If the embargo is lifted, the Cuban people will not benefit from it. Government official will intercept it.

Jobless in Cuba? Communism faces the unthinkable
Jobless in Cuba? Communism faces the unthinkable
By ANNE-MARIE GARCIA (AP) – 1 day ago
HAVANA — At a state project to refurbish a decaying building in Old Havana, one worker paints a wall white while two others watch. A fourth sleeps in a wheelbarrow positioned in a sliver of shade nearby and two more smoke and chat on the curb.
President Raul Castro has startled the nation lately by saying about one in five Cuban workers may be redundant. At the work site on Obispo street, those numbers run in reverse.
It's a common sight in communist Cuba. Here, nearly everyone works for the state and official unemployment is minuscule, but pay is so low that Cubans like to joke that "the state pretends to pay us and we pretend to work."
Now, facing a severe budget deficit, the government has hinted at restructuring or trimming its bloated work force. Such talk is causing tension, however, in a country where the words "neoliberal job cuts" are sacrilege and guaranteed employment was a building block of the 1959 revolution that swept Fidel Castro to power.
Details are sketchy on how and when such pruning would take place. Still, acknowledgment that cuts are needed has come from Raul Castro himself.
"We know that there are hundreds of thousands of unnecessary workers on the budget and labor books, and some analysts calculate that the excess of jobs has surpassed 1 million," said Castro, who replaced his ailing brother Fidel as president nearly four years ago. Cuba's work force totals 5.1 million, in a population of 11.2 million.
In his nationally televised speech in April, Castro also had harsh words for those who do little to deserve their salaries.
"Without people feeling the need to work to make a living, sheltered by state regulations that are excessively paternalistic and irrational, we will never stimulate a love for work," he said.
Indeed, the process of labor reform may already have started, albeit slowly.
Workers in the tourism sector say some of their colleagues have been furloughed during the lean summer months, while others have been reassigned to jobs on state-run farms.
"Since we are now in the low season, the hotel where I work has sent many workers home for two or three months," said Orlando, a chef in Varadero, a sand-and-surf enclave east of Havana.
"It's very hard because you're left with no salary at all," said Orlando, who like almost all state employees, didn't want his full name used to prevent problems at work. Unemployment benefits don't exist in Cuba. He added, "I'm lucky since I'm still in my job."
Veronica, a receptionist at another Varadero hotel, said she feared she may be sent home in August, when her resort will be only half-occupied.
"Sometimes they offer alternatives, to study in a particular course or another job," she said, "but sometimes, when (workers) are sent into the agricultural sector for instance, they just quit."
With the government giving no details of its thinking, rumors have spread that as many as a fourth of all government workers in some industries could lose their jobs or be moved to farming or construction. But Labor Minister Margarita Gonzalez has promised that "Cuba will not employ massive firings in a manner similar to neoliberal cutbacks."
The government has moved to embrace some small free-market reforms. It handed some barbershops over to employees, allowing them to set their own prices but making them pay rent and buy their own supplies. Authorities have also approved more licenses for private taxis while getting tough on unlicensed ones.
The global financial crisis, and the $10 billion in damage inflicted by three hurricanes in 2008, have forced authorities to run a deficit of 5 percent of GDP, leaving them unable to pay back credits received from China and elsewhere.
Cuba slashed spending on importing food and other basics by 34 percent to $9.6 billion in 2009, from $12.7 billion the previous year. But so far, the moves have not been enough to rein in the deficit.
Carmelo Mesa-Lago, a Cuba economics expert and professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh, said Cuban officials have spent months debating cuts in the labor force and economic reforms. He said they know what's needed, but face "a problem of political viability."
Various government perks like cars, gas, uniforms and office supplies have become incentives to bloat the payroll, since they are based on the size of a company's work force.
But low pay means low productivity. On Obispo street, a state-run cafeteria sells heavily subsidized soft ice cream and pork sandwiches for the equivalent of a few American pennies — meaning wages and tips are so tiny that the staff is completely indifferent toward customers.
Three waiters sit at the counter cracking jokes. A fourth is the only one working, making coffee for three tables. Nearby, a cashier stares into space, a cook flirts with a scantily clad teen and a supervisor sits idly by.
The state employs 95 percent of the official work force. Unemployment last year was 1.7 percent and hasn't risen above 3 percent in eight years — but that ignores thousands of Cubans who aren't looking for jobs that pay monthly salaries worth only $20 a month on average.
Salvador Valdes Mesa, secretary-general of the nearly 3 million-strong Cuban Workers Confederation — the only Cuban labor union allowed — has instead written that "reorganization" will ensure redundant workers are reassigned rather than fired.
He said the government wants more jobs in construction and agriculture.
Still, 35-year-old computer engineer Norberto fears for his job. He thinks it's unfair to keep workers under communist domination and yet call them unmotivated. "I didn't graduate from college to now work as a day laborer or a peasant, he said.
If he loses his job and gets an offer to work abroad, he said, "my question is 'Will the Cuban authorities put aside their paternalism and let me leave?'"
Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserve