As reported here, 20 top Spanish influencers have been flown to Cuba by Spanish tour operator Enjoy Travel Group for a one-week visit to promote tourism to the island (naturally with regime involvement). The mostly young and professionally hip visitors reportedly have over 120 million social media followers in Spain and Hispanic countries.
Their itinerary includes the usual Havana and beach resort tourist spots, a salsa class, cooking and mixology contests, and instruction on the beauties and “security” of Cuba. The group includes actress Carlota Boza, Claudia García and Marina Rivers (shown in the photo above from left to right). All three have posted the obligatory shot with a vintage American car on their Instagram pages here, here and here. Talk about following the playbook.
Cuba’s tourist numbers have not returned to pre-pandemic levels, hence this scheme. This promotional venture is being sponsored–surprise!–by Spanish hotel chains Iberostar and Meliá, Canada’s Blue Diamond, and Cuban state agencies Ecotur, Gaviota (part of the GAESA conglomerate run by the military), Cubatur and the Ministry of Tourism.
Needless to say, the oppressively miserable living conditions of ordinary Cubans, the active repression (including forced exile) of dissident Cuban social media figures, and the apartheid aspects of Cuba’s tourist sector are not part of the curriculum for these foreign influencers. Their job is to experience and promote a Potemkin version of Cuba.
However, ignorance of Cuba’s reality is simply not a tenable excuse now, assuming it ever was, especially for highly media-savvy young people in the free world who can easily get information on anything via numerous sources. Willful blindness, of course, is another matter, as is opportunism. And yes, yet again, Spain is front and center in enabling and helping to maintain Cuba’s totalitarian system, as it has been for decades — de puta madre, literally.
This is collaboration for gain with a malignant system which has enslaved and ruined Cuba and metastasized to other countries. I don’t expect influencers to be especially sharp or profound, and far more exalted figures with far greater obligation have failed Cuba. However, the mindless shallowness involved here is both disgusting and pathetic. I stopped expecting the world to help Cuba long ago, but it should do no harm. Evidently, even that is too much to ask.