Posted on 08/03/2015 3:14:23 PM PDT by PROCON
HAVANA – As tourism flourishes in Cuba the island is emerging as a destination for the LGBT community and a travel agency specializing in packages for those customers is already in operation.
Pioneering the business are the owners of Mi Cayito Cuba, a Web-based intermediary between “gay-friendly Cuban private initiative and clients around the world,” company director Alain Castillo, a Cuban who lives in Madrid, told EFE.
“The island has great potential as a space for coexistence,” said the 35-year-old entrepreneur who wants to contribute to “the visibility and improvement of the LGBT collective” in the country.
“We are open to everyone, we believe in a free and tolerant environment where respect is valued,” he said.
Located east of Havana, Mi Cayito is probably the only gay beach in the Cuba and for that reason Castillo thought it was an appropriate name for his company, founded a year ago.
“It is vacation time,” the promotion posted on social media say. “It is Cuba time. The new gay paradise.”
Most popular destinations so far for Mi Cayito Cuba’s clients are Havana, the verdant heaven of Viñales in the western province of Pinar del Rio, and Varadero beach, Castillo said.
Mi Cayito Cuba’s Web site is available only in Spanish, but Castillo said it has been visited by clients in Germany, the United States, Russia, Spain and Latin America who have the choice of tours like “Havana Gay” or a service of personalized guides.
More than 2 million foreign tourists have come to Cuba so far this year.
“Changes in Cuba have become an incentive and have increased demand,” Castillo said, adding that his company expects a flood of U.S. visitors as a result of the thawing of relations between Washington and Havana and the restoration of diplomatic relations after a break of more than 50 years.
Cuba has not always been so welcoming to LGBT people. In the decades following the 1959 revolution led by Fidel Castro, the Cuban government derided, persecuted and jailed gays and lesbians.
In a 2010 interview with the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, Castro acknowledged that he bore ultimate responsibility for the persecution and expressed regret about the policy.
Homosexuality was decriminalized in Cuba in the 1990s and the island’s free public health service began offering sex-reassignment operations in 2008.
...kind of like the reall Boy Scouts, you might say.
Life in Cuba isn’t so gay if you are a homosexual Cuban. It’s prison for those with AIDS.
So *that*’s why Obama wanted to “normalize relations” (snicker) with Cuba.
Wouldn’t that be sweet if they all went there and then Castro closed the country again lol
Better yet, send them all from Key West to Cuba.
Well, Fredo said Johnny Ola showed him that one place.
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