CUBA: Reverse Tourism

Whatever Habaneros wanted—rest, fun, comfort, or bargain shopping—Miami had. A combination of inflated prices in Cuba plus fast, cheap air service had launched a boom in northbound tourist travel; Havana, long celebrated as a tourist spot in its own right, since last spring has sent some 50,000 tourists to Florida.*

Havana travelers show little interest in the crowded and expensive Miami winter season. The Cuban season starts in the spring, hits a peak in midsummer (30,000 in June, July, August and September), ends this week. During the summer, Cubans joke that Biscayne Boulevard is merely an extension of Havana's Prado;...