Lorelis García de la Torre hails from the Cuban metropolis of Camagüey however has all the time liked the stately outdated colonial properties of Havana, many crumbling and gone their glory days. She left Cuba in 2006, first for Spain after which Canada. Shortly after, the nation’s tourism trade heated up, with aspiring entrepreneurs shopping for up properties to show into casas particulares, personal properties obtainable for lease. In 2014, she made a suggestion on a two-story home within the neighborhood of Vedado.

Three years later, she opened the newly renovated home for enterprise, naming it Casa Brava. But as a substitute of renting it out by means of word-of-mouth or reserving businesses, as Cubans had finished for years, she first listed it on Airbnb. “It was the only way I knew of where Cubans had access and could receive payments,” she mentioned. 

But Airbnb didn’t simply provide Cubans like García de la Torre a method of renting their properties to vacationers in a easy and centralized method. According to interviews with hosts, guides, service staff, and resort trade professionals, Airbnb basically modified the best way that tourism operates on the island, changing the nation’s decades-old casa specific system and reworking whole neighborhoods to serve the wants of latest purchasers with completely different expectations. Airbnb declined to be interviewed for this text.

The uniquely Cuban system of casas particulares grew overseas’s so-called Special Period, after the autumn of the Soviet Union within the early Nineties. The authorities started to open up the housing market, permitting for the sale of private homes for vacationer lodging. Ricardo Torres Pérez, an economist and analysis fellow at American University, in Washington D.C., mentioned that, in consequence, “the number of visitors grew exponentially.” 

The casas particulares provided one thing that different lodging couldn’t. “Before it was a business, it was somebody’s home,” mentioned Alison Coelho, who has been main tourism experiences in Cuba since 2000. 

The mannequin felt, and appeared, not so completely different from the one Airbnb pitched when it was based in 2008. “Hotels leave you disconnected from the city and its culture,” the corporate’s original pitch deck learn. “Book rooms with locals.”

“Airbnb is definitely a continuation of the casa particular model,” mentioned Tom Popper, an knowledgeable on Cuban tourism from 82° West Consultants, a agency targeted on enterprise entry to Cuba. 

Airbnb entered the Cuban market in 2015 to much fanfare, as President Obama eased journey restrictions. In its first yr of operations, the platform introduced 4,000 of Cuba’s estimated 20,000 casas particulares onto its platform. Current information supplied to Rest of World from the short-term rental information supplier AirDNA exhibits that by May 2017, the entire variety of Airbnb listings had topped 20,000, primarily subsuming the casa specific market. Listings peaked at virtually 35,000, the summer season earlier than Covid-19. 

According to tourism specialists, Airbnb made the casa specific mannequin simpler for each visitors and homeowners, offering a spot to not solely record properties however make funds, moderately than depend on word-of-mouth and money. Furthermore, individuals like García de la Torre have been shopping for properties to record them on Airbnb — individuals from not solely Cuba however different international locations like Italy and Spain as nicely.  

Airbnb’s entry into Cuba coincided with a rise in tourism to the island total, with the variety of vacationers rising by over 50% between 2014 and 2018. Tourism from the United States almost quadrupled between 2015 and 2018.

Yusleidys Pérez Ugarte, a journey agent who labored with the federal government till the pandemic hit, mentioned that the enlargement of personal house leases beneath Airbnb shortly took priority over the resort trade. “It’s not a secret to anyone that the hotels in Cuba are expensive and don’t have the best service,” she mentioned. “During Obama’s term, when relations improved and Americans began to come, the private houses expanded because hotels could not keep up.”

According to residents, neighborhoods in Havana started to rework beneath the brand new inflow of improvement and vacationers. Adriana Ricardo Díaz is the director of Arte Corte, a nonprofit group challenge in Old Havana that trains hairdressers. “During the years before the pandemic, the private sector took off, especially in the rental housing market,” she mentioned. “Improvement didn’t look like the gentrification that you usually see in other countries, with its devastating impact. … People sold their houses that were in bad conditions, and there was a recuperation of wealth.” 

Cubans started to make the most of Airbnb’s experiences function as nicely. Ricardo Díaz provided experiences centered round cocktail making and would present vacationers round Arte Corte. 

Manuel Fortún Manzano, a 29-year-old from Havana, was working in human sources for a government-run building firm when his pal instructed him about Airbnb in 2018. He started providing an experience referred to as “The Havana Whisperer,” the place he would train vacationers about all the pieces from the way to change cash to what neighborhoods to go to (accompanied by cocktails and meals, after all). It shortly grew to become his fundamental supply of earnings. “More than anything, it provided me with economic autonomy,” he instructed Rest of World.  

David Ferrán had been working as a tour information in Havana when Airbnb got here to the nation. Before, individuals struggled to advertise their excursions and discover purchasers. “What Airbnb did was allow a lot of people working as tour guides for the state to start working independently,” he instructed Rest of World. Ferrán started to create completely different experiences for the platform, going as far as to open a family-run spa enterprise, which he now operates outdoors of Airbnb. 

Havana remains to be the principle hub for vacationers in Cuba, however elements of the nation that had by no means seen tourism modified as nicely. According to a number of hosts and Pérez, the American University economist who spoke with Rest of World, Airbnb was in a position to open completely different areas to non-public house leases in a method that casas particulares by no means may.

Nadal Antelmo Vizcaíno is initially from Santa Marta, a small city bordering the favored vacationer vacation spot of Varadero Beach, about two hours east of Havana. He moved to Miami in 2016 however determined to record his home on Airbnb in 2017, after he noticed its burgeoning footprint on the island. 

At first, his city was sluggish to adapt to the platform. “There weren’t more than five or 10 houses [on Airbnb],” Antelmo instructed Rest of World. But as he went again every year, he started to see how a lot the city was altering. New eating places and cafés opened. There was a building increase to fulfill demand for extra homes. “Airbnb completely revolutionized Santa Marta,” he mentioned.

Evelio Jesús Medero Vázquez was a taxi driver within the Varadero space between 2015 and 2018, driving the kind of basic automotive that has develop into synonymous with Cuba — in his case, a 1956 Porsche. He started to do extra journeys forwards and backwards from Havana, shuttling vacationers, principally staying at Airbnbs, to the seaside city. “It created a constant flow of clients who wanted to learn more about Cuba,” he mentioned. 

Like Antelmo, he noticed how shortly the cities round Varadero modified. Upscale new eating places popped up, and individuals who owned basic vehicles like himself have been servicing 1000’s of vacationers a day. “Places that used to be dumps or abandoned were becoming … clean and beautiful places,” he instructed Rest of World. “Airbnb was an unprecedented driving force.”

“There were definitely bumps in the road,” mentioned Popper, the tourism advisor. Internet entry was one. Some casa specific homeowners, lengthy used to working by means of word-of-mouth, have been unable to adapt to the brand new expertise. Rodolfo Rodríguez Trejo has been renting his property within the Vedado neighborhood in Havana for over 20 years. When Airbnb opened in Cuba, he tried to enroll in the platform, however his web entry was spotty, and he wasn’t in a position to create an account.

Another ache level for Cuban hosts was fee. People with twin citizenship or working from different international locations, like Antelmo, may settle for funds by means of non-Cuban financial institution accounts. However, Cubans nonetheless within the nation and with no different nationalities were faced with fee points on the platform.

On a airplane to Miami in 2018, Rodríguez Trejo met an Airbnb host who instructed him that he was going to the corporate’s headquarters to ask them for overdue funds. After listening to this testimony, Rodríguez Trejo felt good about his determination to not use the platform. “In Cuba, it’s a struggle to buy things like butter, cheese, and eggs,” he instructed Rest of World. “It takes a lot of time and effort to then have to also deal with delayed payments for months.” 

As Airbnb took over the casa specific mannequin, two years after its launch in Cuba, the platform was handed a bonus over its remaining fundamental competitor: lodges. 

New guidelines beneath the Trump administration restricted the place U.S. residents may keep, forcing Marriott to stop operations on the island. Instead, after Airbnb reportedly spent 1 / 4 million {dollars} in lobbying efforts, the U.S. authorities inspired guests to Cuba to remain at personal properties. 

Alessandro Benedetti, the manager assistant supervisor at Gran Hotel Manzana Kempinski in Havana, one of many premiere lodges in Cuba, mentioned that, usually, Airbnb wouldn’t be a direct competitor with the luxurious resort market. That was not the case in Cuba, the place Americans made up the largest share of visitors earlier than the pandemic. 

“For this particular market, I would say that for hotels, Airbnb is the competition,” he instructed Rest of World. “Many tourists want to come to Cuba but are concerned with the regulation, so they go the safer way.”

While the Trump administration’s extra restrictive insurance policies started to decrease the circulate of tourism to Cuba, the pandemic almost shut it off. Except for a quick interval in the summertime of 2020, Cuba’s borders have been closed to worldwide vacationers for almost all of 2020 and 2021, lastly reopening in 2021. Hotels have been closed, and Airbnb occupancy dropped precipitously. 

Now, with tourism on the rebound, it’s unclear to tourism specialists whether or not Airbnb is healthier positioned than lodges. Properties just like the Kempinski resorts proceed to open in Cuba, providing the forms of luxurious experiences that have been unavailable on the island earlier than the pandemic. 

García is hopeful that Airbnb enterprise will rebound with the easing of the pandemic. She’s even serving to her nephew restore an vintage home within the city of Trinidad in central Cuba, about 4 hours east of Havana. Her imaginative and prescient is that when it opens, they’ll deliver visitors on a tour between the 2 homes.

“Even though people don’t have hope in Cuba, I think there is a lot of future in this country,” she mentioned.