Obama Announces U.S. and Cuba Will Resume Relations. This is not normally a topic I would write about on my blog so I won’t get into the political reasons behind this new revelation. I am neither qualified nor overly interested.
What does interest me, however, is ways businesses can take advantage of this situation. Obama speaks about “increasing travel, commerce, and the flow of information” in his announcement video. This is when my ears perked up.
Here are some business thoughts I had (with the assumption of opening tourism):
- How long will it take AirBnB to launch into Cuba?
- Government regulation and computer availability could be issue
- Will Facebook lobby the Cuban government to open the world-wide web to their citizen?
- I think is Castro still on MySpace
- What kind of capital is required to start a cigar import business?
- The black market won’t be happy about this
- Are there any American companies that specialize in Cuban tourism?
- I imagine there are but now we won’t have to fly through Canada to get there, eh.
- Is there a sea ferry between the US and Cuba that vacationers can take for a quick weekend trip?
- All aboard!
- How will this affect Puerto Rico tourism?
- I wonder what a Cuban passport stamp looks like – a tasty sandwich?
- When will the first US based cruise ship dock there and how much will my ticket cost?
- I hope it’s Quantum of the Seas.
- Are there any code academies there?
- Need to get some more coders out there because I’m sure not one of them.
- Do any one laptop per child initiatives exist?
- I could just have a negative impression on how developed the country is.
I’ve included Obama’s video announcement below.