Cuba, the formerly off-limits land of vintage cars, beautiful beaches, cigars, mojitos, and Ernest Hemingway, will be opening for American tourism for the first time since the 1960s. A Switchfly Travel Trend Report: How Interested Are U.S. Travelers in Visiting Cuba offers an overview of those Americans who are most curious about visiting Cuba – and of those who are not – based on gender, age, marital status, income, education and region.
The headlines:
- 37% of Americans will consider taking a trip to Cuba
- Over two in five American Millennials (46%) and 45-54-year-old men (46%) will consider a visit to Cuba
- More than half of senior women (51%) and half of Midwesterners (50%) say they will never go to Cuba
- 52% of students and 50% of college graduates would visit Cuba
- Only 24% of 35-44-year-old women will consider a visit to Cuba
- Of those Americans who will consider a visit to Cuba, 35% will wait 2-5 years to visit once “kinks” have been worked out
“Cuba is super cool it’s opening up as a new destination for most Americans who in the last two or three generations never had the opportunity to go to Cuba because of all the trade embargoes associated with the country,” said Daniel Farrar, CEO of Switchfly, Inc. “Looking at the pictures of Cuba it’s a virtual time warp of a visual paradise that I think a lot of people especially millennials want to experience.”
Switchfly says the growing number of millennials and their unconventional travel style is not going unnoticed. “These aren’t people that are looking for the traditional resorts, they are looking for travel experiences with a desire to explore,” said Farrar. “A lot of millennials we have found not only want to see a new place but they will also volunteer.”
Further insights:
- According to Switchfly platform data, travel to Cuba is set to quadruple by the end of 2015 compared to 2014. The duration of the average trip will remain the same as 2014 – 13 days.
- Few US-based commercial airlines have secured direct nonstop routes to Cuba from the US at the time of this writing.
- American Airlines has partnered with tour operator Cuba Travel Services, based in Cypress, to offer charter flights from Los Angeles to Havana beginning in December 2015.
- US-based passenger cruise lines will begin routes to Cuba in 2016.
The Switchfly Travel Trend Report includes travel data from the Switchfly platform as well as research conducted online within the United States by Harris Poll on behalf of Switchfly from September 14-16, 2015, among 2,031 adults ages 18 and older, 690 of whom would ever go to Cuba. The research was not based on a probability sample, and, therefore, no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.
