Americans have been visiting Cuba in record numbers in spite of strict travel restrictions that require going through a lot of red tape, according to Reuters.
These visitors are in addition to the hundreds of thousands of Cuban Americans who travel home every year to visit family, according to the Cuban government figures, which were published on Friday. The Cuban government considers those people to be Cuban nationals, and doesn't include them in its tourism statistics.
The figures show that just over 98,000 U.S. citizens visited Cuba in 2012, which is an increase from the 73,500 visitors that went in 2011 and twice the number of visitors that traveled there five years ago, according to a report by the National Statistics Office.
Currently, U.S. citizens are banned from traveling to Cuba without first receiving government permission under a U.S. trade embargo that was put into place about 50 years ago and can only be removed by Congress.
Even Jay-Z and Beyoncé traveled to Cuba, and received a lot of negative press attention for their trip, which some government officials questioned as being a leisure trip that didn't fall under the proper governmental guidelines.
Travel restrictions have been slightly loosened by President Obama, who has allowed what is termed "people-to-people" contact that is aimed at increasing political change in the country, still under communist rule and located only 90 miles off the coast of Florida.
In addition to allowing Cuban-Americans to freely travel back and forth, Obama has also authorized licenses for "purposeful" travel to more than 250 Cuba travel agents as well as allowing more airports to provide charter services between the countries.
"Cuba has so much to offer in terms of culture, history and issues of mutual concern - healthcare, education and the environment - and students, professionals, people of faith are curious," Collin Laverty, the head of travel provider Cuba Educational Travel, said.
With current political interactions, travel to Cuba is seen as a key political issue by both sides, supporters of the embargo as well as opponents to the embargo.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
