In Cuba, tourism apartheid, the practice of offering te best of the accommodations in Cuban and services for international travelers rather than Cubans themselves.
For long time, Cubans were not allowed to set their foot inside many hotels and restaurants which remained specifically reserved for international tourists. Diplotiendas that stored only imported goods were out of bounds and only international travelers could buy and use cell phones. It’s no more the point that if Cubans can pay for the goods or afford the services. However, other vestiges of tourism segregation carry on.
Nonetheless, few well-known Cubans, have taken this inequality in Cuban tourism to public until Pánfilo, whose real name is Luis Silva and who is a public, skewered it in one of his recent Facebook posts.
Silva turned the character of Pánfilo into a crotchety retiree who supervises to win over the experiences of daily life, famed on his popular weekly television show Vivir del Cuento. In expectancy of former President Barack Obama’s visit on March 2016 to Cuba, Pánfilo had even filmed two comedy sketches with the president. The concept was a dream project by the U.S. to introduce Obama to the people of Cuba in a less formal and familiar way.
Even though the show of Silva appears on the state television of Cuba, “Pánfilo is still given more license than others to point out the daily struggles of ordinary Cubans and even poke fun at the government,” noted Terry Szuplat, former senior director of speechwriting at the National Security Council, during Obama visit.
“The Ministry of Tourism itself has directives that discriminate against Cubans,” Silva wrote on Facebook, “We can stay in a hotel, but we cannot take out a catamaran with a motor; you cannot use any motorized nautical means.”
