Preparing for a Mass Exodus--into Cuba

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Cuba's reliance on tourism is a somewhat humbling turn for the revolution, which has long prided itself on producing topflight doctors and teachers--not concierges. But the island state had few other options once it lost its huge Soviet subsidies in 1990. Since then, it has built a $2 billion-a-year tourism industry that accounts for 41% of the country's hard-currency reserves. The annual tally of visitors has quintupled in the past decade, to 1.9 million. The island, roughly the size of Florida, has 11 international airports. With its appeal to mambo-era nostalgia and its pristine scuba-diving sites, Cuba was voted the best destination in the Caribbean by readers of Travel & Leisure magazine this year. Castro's dictatorship isn't exactly the stuff of tourist brochures, but the torrid cold war history shared by Cuba and the U.S. may be part of the attraction.

Island officials estimate that if the travel ban is abolished, 1 million or more Americans would enter Cuba in the first year; absorbing them is not a problem, says Tourism Ministry adviser Miguel Figueras, because most Americans travel from May to August, Cuba's low seasons. But what about the 2.5 million to 3 million the Cubans expect in Year Five? "I can assure you, for that we are not ready," Figueras says. But judging by the mood in Congress, Americans are.