IMF expert recognizes Cuba’s tourism potential
HAVANA TIMES, Mar. 3 – Cuba is at the head of the tourist sector in the Caribbean, affirmed Rafael Romeu, an official from the International Monetary Fund (IFM) in charge of economic projections for Latin America, when speaking at the 12th International Meeting of Economists on Globalization and Development Problems, being held in the Cuban capital. In 2009 the island reported the highest growth in tourist arrivals compared to the other countries in the area, reported IPS.
HT: Employee-owned cooperative corporations–on the Mondragon model–for running most hotels and the majority of Cuban tourism businesses would provide lucrative, dignified employment for Cubans. They would also prove the workability of such enterprise forms for other economic sectors.
The state would hold significant but partial, non-controlling ownership of these, and leave administration to the employees. Employees would try to make profits from these and distribute any profits to themselves and to the state every quarter–every three months, which is the business norm.
The state would receive more revenue from such an invigorated system of tourist enterprises, but not have to 1) pay an army of bureau workers to engage in administration, or 2) share revenues with foreign investors.
Such corporations–with state power in the hands of the PCC–would provide a model for a new form of workable enterprise to socialist transformationaries around the world.