WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONTN/S/W/1
14 May 2002
(02-2681)
Council for Trade in Services
Special SessionOriginal:  Spanish
COMMUNICATION FROM  CUBA
Negotiating Proposal on Tourism and Travel-Related Services
The following communication has been received from the delegation of Cuba with the request
that it be circulated to the Members of the Council for Trade in Services.
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I. INTRODUCTION
1. Cuba submits this negotiating proposal1 as an initial contribution to the discussion on the
tourism and travel-related services sector in the framework of the special negotiating session of the
Services Council.
II. IMPORTANCE OF THE SECTOR
2. Mass international tourism, nowadays recogn ized as the leading industry in the world
economy, can be classified as one of the new activities which soared in the second half of the
twentieth century, and is relatively young and dynamic. At international level, tourists represent three
quarters of all annual travellers.
3. The year 2001 marked a new situation in global tourism. For the first time in half a century,
tourist arrivals fell by over 1 per cent. The American region saw a 7 per cent decline and preliminary
figures situate the setback in the Caribbean at 5 per cent. The bankruptcy of dozens of airline
companies, the sudden tourist vacuum experienced by most tourist regions and the precarious
situation in which the economies of tourism-dependent developing countries found themselves havechanged the correlation between the different factors which come into play in this activity.
4. The tourism industry is of great importance to developing countries and significantly
contributes to the goal of sustainable development by generating employment, preserving natural
resources, developing infrastructure and attracting foreign direct investment.
5. The international tourism scene has undergone a complete change and there is now an urgent
need to remove barriers which hinder the recovery and expansion of tourism activities in developing
countries and ensure that no new discriminatory practices ensue.
6. Trade liberalization in this sector requires the elimination of discriminatory measures, such as
that applied by the United States of America to Cuba for more than 40 years, which has represented a
                                                     
1 Cuba reserves the right to amend this proposal, which does not prejudge its final position on
subsectors or services that are not included in the analysis, at any time.TN/S/W/1
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loss to our tourism industry of 16 billion dollars, corresponding to the revenue which Cuban entities
would have received for the provision of tourism services to United States citizens.
III. PROPOSAL
A. BASIS FOR NEGOTIATIONS
7. The liberalization of the tourism services sector should foster the increasing participation of
developing countries through negotiated specific commitments which help to strengthen their
domestic services capacity, allow them to become sufficiently competitive through access to
technology, improve their access to distribution channels and information networks on a transparent
basis and grant them market access in the modes of supply of export interest to them, in accordance
with Article IV of the GATS.
8. The negotiations should take place with due respect for the national policy objectives of
Member countries and take their different levels of development into account. There should beappropriate flexibility for individual developing country Members to condition access to their markets
by means of a regulatory framework attuned to a progressively higher level of liberalization in line
with their development situation, pursuant to Article XIX of the GATS.
9. The negotiations should promote the elimination and prevention of anti-competitive practices
of tourism enterprises as a whole, such as warnings of bans on tourism for certain destinations andlack of transparency of information which could favour other destinations, as well as discriminatory
use of information networks and related services.
B. 
EXPECTED OUTCOME OF THE NEGOTIATIONS
10. The liberalization of tourism services should not give rise to contradictions with national
policies with regard to environmental preservation.
11. The negotiations should protect and promote Members' endogenous resources for display to
visitors without attempting to change or transform it by introducing exogenous elements from other
countries or customs. The natural dovetailing of local culture with the provision of international
tourism services should be respected.
12. Bearing in mind the importance of the tourism services sector to the economies of many
developing countries in terms of volume of reve nue, creation of employment, both direct and related
to other sectors, and its positive impact on their GDP, the negotiations should achieve the following:
• Developed countries should make commitments which allow for the effective
implementation of Article IV of the GATS.
• When developing countries make commitments, developed countries should
guarantee implementation of Article XIX.2 without requiring any further obligations
other than those which stem from their national policy objectives and development
targets.
• Negotiations on market access and national treatment should be established on the
basis of the outcome of the assessment of trade in services which demonstrates to
developing countries that they will directly benefit from any commitments to be
made.TN/S/W/1
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• Commitments should be made which allow tourist destinations to meet their
requirements as regards sustainable social and ecological as well as economicdevelopment.
• The elimination of existing barriers and transparent regulation of administrative
procedures which hinder or delay the issue of licences and work permits to
foreigners, particularly with regard to aspects of the service provision which cannotbe handled by the local workforce.
• The elimination of discriminatory oligopolistic practices by groups of major tour
operators which put pressure on developing countries and thereby displace them fromthe market.
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