At Cuban Americans’ mom-and-pop agency, travel business isn’t moving

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

All around Mario Romero’s strip-mall travel agency, this immigrant neighborhood was alive with commercial traffic, all of it moving to a clave rhythm clunking from an outdoor speaker. In and out they went on a sunny Monday morning to the IGA food store, or the Gala hair salon, or La Epoca restaurant for a cafecito, writes Richard Fausset.

But few stopped in to see Romero. His business, Cojimar Express Services, is one of dozens of Miami-area agencies that hold federal licenses to sell plane tickets to Cuba. These days, he said, people are too scared to buy.

‘There is no business,’ he said. ‘You don’t see anybody in here.’

Romero, who left the island in 1991, sat at his desk in a crisp linen shirt and stared at a row of empty chairs beneath his black-and-white photos of the Cuban countryside: The banks of the Rio Miel. The fishing boats at Pinar del Rio.

This slowdown, Romero said, was the result of yet another shift in regulations on this side of the Straits of Florida. A state law passed this summer requiring agencies like his to post bonds of as much as $250,000. The state would use the money to open investigations of companies suspected of skirting the rules governing travel to Cuba.

Read more about the slowdown in travel to Cuba here, and for more on Cuba in general, click here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City