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By Ely Justiniani Perez (El Toque)
HAVANA Occasions – Minister of Labor and Social Security, Marta Elena Feito Cabrera, ratified the ban on training as a tour guidebook in the personal sector. A letter dated December 28, 2021, was shipped this week to the 6 representatives of a large group of tour guides who are calling for their activity to be granted authorized position as self-employment. So considerably they are out of luck.
The letter rules that vacation agencies and tour operators “are related with tourism solutions developed and commercialized by Cuba’s condition tourism small business system and, according to the Ministry of Tourism’s policy, these simply cannot be commercialized by pure folks, nor are they capable to function as component of personal micro, little and medium-sized enterprises, cooperatives or as self-utilized.”
This destructive response arrives following just about a calendar year given that over a thousand persons linked to the sector known as for this exercise to be legalized. They organized and despatched petitions to the corresponding ministries and even engaged in conversations with officers from these establishments. In this article is a summary of this process.
TIMELINE of a NO
February 10, 2021 the Ministry of Labor and Social Stability issued a checklist of 124 financial things to do that banned in Cuba’s private sector including tour operator services and travel organizations. This led to a heated debate from individuals joined to tourism products and services.
In the adhering to weeks, dozens of folks joined to the sector began to mobilize and ship letters to the corresponding bodies. They also shared an on-line petition for the legalization of private vacation agencies and the document was signed by around 1500 persons.
May possibly 20, 2021 In reaction, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security wrote a prepared response to a single of its signatories expressing that “with the new Social/Financial System to force the countrywide economy in the desire of encouraging local enhancement and generation linkages amongst the general public sector and personal forms of administration, the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection, along with the Ministry of Tourism, are examining regardless of whether to allow these actions and some others relating to the tourism sector.”
June 7, 2021 the Cuban Republic’s Official Gazette revealed Resolution 132/21 by the Ministry of Tourism (MINTUR), a new sequence of polices for “national travel agencies”.
Though the laws never explicitly point out who can make these businesses it does figure out that normal Cuban folks (together with the self-utilized) can be “providers of tour services” that provide “the sale of these in groups, programs, circuits, excursions or other vacationer services” by using countrywide vacation agencies. It does not explain how this romance would do the job but the deficiency of clarity in these polices was also a spark of hope for the much more optimistic.
August 19, 2021 To a lot of people’s disappointment, the activity of vacation organizations and tour operators reappeared on the banned list once more inside of a new sequence of decrees and resolutions that regulate private sector enterprises (including MSMEs, cooperatives and self-employment).
September 22, 2021 Faced with ongoing complaints, officers from the Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Labor and Social Security agree to meet with six associates from the Facebook group Guías Turísticos por su legalización como TCP (Tour Guides seeking legalization as the Self-Utilized), which experienced around 800 members at the time (currently, there are 1100).
At this assembly, MINTUR requested the guides to hand in prepared challenge proposals so they can “better comprehend how much they want to go so they can determine the red-tape that the action “tour guide” would face as self-employment, to legislate and uncover a option to this pink-tape and giving them large-ranging and unrestricted participation,” in accordance to a summary of the meeting that was posted by the group’s users.
January 7, 2022 Group reps from Guías Turísticos por su legalización como TCP who took section in the meeting with MINTUR and MTSS acquire a letter from Minister Feito, who ratified the ban on the follow of tour guides and travel organizations, both equally as self-employment functions, as perfectly as MSMEs and cooperatives.
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