PHOTO BY PAULA MULLER
Jonathan Bedard of Cubatodo.com talks about popular places in Cuba.
BY GABE MARTINEZ
LYNN — Rum, cigars, and Che Guevara T-shirts are making a comeback, thanks to President Barack Obama’s effort to end the trade embargo between the U.S. and Cuba.
Jonathan Bedard, owner of Cubatodo.com, an online travel agency founded in 2009 that specializes in trips to Cuba, said as a result of Obama’s visit to the island nation, he expects demand for his company’s services to soar.
“About 1,000 people a day are returning to Miami from Havana,” said Bedard, a Swampscott resident. “Now, 90 percent of them are Cuban-Americans, but the American portion of that is what has changed the most.”
Two years ago, before the thaw in U.S.-Cuban relations, his firm booked fewer than 100 trips a year.
“If you tell Americans they can’t do something, then there’s nothing more they want to do,” he said.
Americans have been allowed to travel to Cuba for more than a decade. But their trip must fall under one of a dozen categories, including journalism, U.S. government business, religious activities and support for the Cuban people, in order for Bedard and his team to process travelers.
Cubatodo.com, which has 20 employees in the U.S. and Cuba, provides roundtrip airfare, hotel accommodations, guidebooks, and travel to and from the airport, with packages starting at $999.
Traveling in a country where red tape can be considered a sport, Bedard has even created a word to describe travel to the island.
“You all know what simplify means, but I created a word about Cuba; it’s called ‘complexify,’” he said.
Bedard summarized his invented term as follows: In Cuba, instead of adding a value-added tax to an item, such as paintings, for example, when leaving the country, travelers are required to have a sticker to certify the painting.
Many travelers don’t understand this concept. As a result, their paintings are often confiscated. If a painting is of a certain size, it doesn’t require a sticker, but a piece of paper instead. This, according to Bedard, is just another example of Cuba’s arcane bureaucracy.
Bedard also said that many Americans are not used to the island’s bureaucracy. He recommends that travelers laugh about and appreciate the peculiarities of the island’s workings.
The team at Cubatodo.com travel to the island monthly, and has already noticed a few changes on the island, including rising hotel prices.
“The hotels, they learned capitalism overnight in Cuba,” Bedard said.
Gabe Martinez can be reached at [email protected] follow him on Twitter @gemartinez92.
