The Trump administration’s recent decision to disallow individual people-to-people travel to Cuba, will fundamentally impact budget or backpack travelers and negatively impact the economy of the private tourism sector in Cuba that has blossomed dramatically over the past five years. While this new policy will not impact Altruvistas basic operations and our over 50 annual customized small group journeys to Cuba; we lament how the new policy restrictions will undermine our delegates/participants’ abilities to extend their exploration of Cuba after our program ends.
Altruvistas stands by the ethos that travel should be a right for those subject to US jurisdiction and that the best foreign policy towards Cuba is to lift the archaic US embargo, end the Trading with the Enemy Act, and respect the sovereignty and self-determination of the Cuban people.
Altruvistas believes in the power of people-to-people exchanges and citizen diplomacy. Our staff has over twenty-five years of organizing educational, professional and people-to-people Cuba Trips and seen concretely how travel benefited both our travelers and local hosts and partners from diverse sectors in Cuba. Our founder, Malia Everette, started traveling to Cuba in 1991 and has personally as well as professionally experienced the incremental sociopolitical and economic changes that have concretely benefited the day-to-day lives of her friends, work associates, and family in Cuba. We encourage the Trump administration to move forward diplomatically and work towards engagement will all the Cuban people.
