how many have been turned off by the "travel ban"?

"jejeje" is how people are phonetically spelling "heh heh heh" if they were speaking spanish.

I would bet more than 90% of the population are so clueless that they don't even know it's easily possible to travel to Cuba. That's before you even get to the point of being scared off by the ban.

I think more Americans would be interested in visiting Cuba if the travel restrictions did not exist. Out of curiousity more than anything else. It has been off limits for so long that it doesn't even register with the vast majority of the travelling public.

I still go to Cuba with the existing ban. I just can't let politics dictate how often I have to see my family in Cuba.

I talk to a LOT of Americans about travel in Cuba, and I would say that about 80% of them think they cannot travel to Cuba because of restrictions put on by the CUBAN government. However, my conversations are not normally with Cuban-Americans, and I wouldn't expec them to be among the ignorant on this subject. I'm just talking about your normal Middle American who, when they find out I have traveled in Cuba, tends to ask questions like, "When do you think they (the Cubans) are going to start letting Americans in?" Or, "What would they (the Cubans) do to me if I tried to enter on my US passport?"

Once I inform Americans that the bann on travel to Cuba is on the US side, most say they would love to go there but would be afraid to as long as it's illegal. In short, I think the interest is there right now, just because Cuba has been more or less off-limits for so long. But I agree with Altahabana that the restrictions do definitely inhibit travel there.

Good for you, Chanqui78. Now if you can just get all your fellow Cuban emigrees to the US to stand with you and defy the ban, maybe collectively you can have more impact on idiot policies than other US voters, to whom it matters less.

It might be usefull to state that the Cubans' own research indicates that Cuba would receive two million additional visitors in the first year that a travel ban was lifted and five million per year after three years. The current level of foreign travel to Cuba is 2M +/-.

The Cuban infrastructure would be hard pressed to cater to the expected doubling. USA should lift the travel ban and watch the Fido crowd whine. Then they could come to their asistance by reimposing it as a goodwill gesture! Je! Je! Je!

I predict that as soon as the travel ban is gone the 1st thing la barba will do is impose a quota on how many yanquis can come each year.
Their arguments will seem a bit contorted when explaining that while they've been whining for years they were not getting US tourists, but with all the talk that they are 'not ready' to receive the new comers the jefes are already preparing the ground.

<blockquote>Quote
<hr>I talk to a LOT of Americans about travel in Cuba, and I would say that about 80% of them think they cannot travel to Cuba because of restrictions put on by the CUBAN government. <hr></blockquote>
Being married to a Cuban for 7 years and travelling there frequently, I was also asked a LOT about travelling to Cuba. I do not recall anyone who thought the travel ban was imposed unilaterally by Cuba or who was unaware of the US trade and travel restrictions. Many people did however believe the restrictions were mutual and were surprised that the Cuban government would allow Americans to visit. But to get back to the OP's question, very few expressed anything more than mild curiousity about visiting Cuba. And the curiousity was sparked by the socialist mystique and not by an interest in the type of things that US vacationers look for when considering a vacation in the Caribbean.

I have a US friend who simply refuses to go simply because of the travel restrictions.

He would have nearly a zero chance of getting caught as well since he resides overseas from the US.

Most people I've talked to also said they would not even consider going to Cuba because of the travel restrictions. But I only recall a handful saying that they would definately go if it weren't for the restrictions. Cuba will have to be heavily marketed as a vacation spot to get those millions of American tourists on the road to Havana once the restrictions are relaxed. Because so many here have strong ties to or feelings about Cuba, it is hard to appreciate just how indifferent most of the US public is towards Cuban issues.