At the Sandals Royal Hicacos Resort and Spa in Varadero, Cuba's heavily-developed and most familiar tourist location, there is plaque on a wall in the main function room, which reads, in Spanish: "To protect and promote the values of the revolution for the workers is the primary task of the tourism sector."
This sums up the edginess with which Castro's regime regards foreign holidaymakers. On the one hand, inward investment by hotel owners and expenditure by foreign visitors provides an escape route from the economic hardships that Cuba has suffered since the collapse of the Soviet Union. On the other, the Cuban leadership suspects that travellers, especially the high-spending Canadians who provide a major slice of the market, may bring about what Washington has never been able to achieve - the alienation of the people from their rulers.
On the other side of the ideological fence, the idea that tourism can itself be a revolutionary force has been deployed by the Orient-Express group to justify its presence in Burma. In a press release sent to the trade magazine Meetings & Incentive Travel, which I edit, Orient-Express stated: "Orient-Express is an apolitical organisation which takes the view, based on experience, that opening up countries to tourism and interaction between ordinary people is a positive move, which can be a catalyst for long-term social change."
But the fears of Cuba's Committee for the Defence of the Revolution and the optimism of Orient-Express are equally misplaced.
Someone who knew all about the willingness of tourists to turn a blind eye to totalitarianism was Generalissimo Franco, who charged his tourism and propaganda minister, Manuel Fraga Iribarne, with the responsibility of luring holidaymakers to the country in the 1960s. The result was the creation of the Costas, the "El Pub" concept, and a plethora of ersatz flamenco performers.
In Portugal, too, in the 1960s, the British bucket-and-spade brigade showed no compunction in sunning themselves on the Algarve during the rightwing dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar. From Tito's Yugoslavia to Greece under the regime of the colonels, authoritarian governments have proved no disincentive to sun-seekers.
As for the opportunities for self-advancement offered to the employees in the tourism and hospitality sector, there is no reason for Cuba's leaders to worry that the presence of five-star hotels will create an affluent and politically ambitious middle class. Most of the jobs in the hospitality sector are menial and poorly paid, and the shareholders of international chain hotels are keen to funnel any profits into their own sybaritic lifestyles, rather than encouraging the enrichment of indigenous populations.
Travellers who wish to drink a daiquiri in the same Havana bar as Hemingway or follow the footsteps of the young Eric Blair in Burma can only consult their conscience and act accordingly. But if you believe that you can help free the world from tyranny while taking a break from your daily routine, you are harbouring an illusion that benefits only those who seek to preserve their repressive status quo.
