The Survey: What Some U.S. Company Representatives Think About Cuba

The Survey: What Some U.S. Companies Representatives Think About Cuba

From January 2015 through March 2016, the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council communicated with 437 individuals subject to United States law who work for United States-based companies and who had traveled to the Republic of Cuba since 17 December 2014.  

Of the 437, twenty-nine (29) confirmed that they had visited the Republic of Cuba, but would not discuss the commercial activities or opportunities for their company.  One hundred and thirty-seven (137) of the individuals identified as “self-employed” or “consultant.”  

The definition of “commercial opportunities” was exporting products to, importing products from, exporting services to, importing services from, and providing Direct Foreign Investment (DFI).

Survey participants consisted of large, medium and small publicly-held and privately-held companies; with a geographical imprint representing forty-seven states (excluding Alaska, Hawaii, and Arizona):

Accounting
Advertising
Agricultural Commodities
Airlines
Architectural
Automobile Manufacturing
Automobile Parts
Building Materials
Computer Services
Consumer Products
Employment
Energy
Exporting
Financial
Food product
Food Service
Franchise
Healthcare
Hospitality
Importing
Law Firms
Manufacturing
Mining
Printing
Publishing
Real Estate
Restaurants
Retail
Shipping
Supermarket
Transportation
Travel Agency
Truck Manufacturers
Waste Management
WND (Would Not Disclose)

Respondents in the following categories were most optimistic about opportunities for their respective areas: Law firms (81%), hospitality (77%), agricultural commodities (82%), food products (91%), consumer products (87%), restaurants (68%). 

1) Provide the number of visits by company representatives to the Republic of Cuba and the estimated expenditures (per person average US$1,985.00 for two-night visit: airfares, hotels, meals, incidentals, etc.; with single high reported as US$4,600.00):  
1- 88%
2- 8%
3- 2%
4- 1%
Would Not Disclose- 1%

2) For companies not having engaged with the Republic of Cuba, using a scale of one (1-lowest) to five (5-highest) the expectations by the company of engaging in meaningful (self-defined) commercial activities within the Republic of Cuba within two years:
1- 79%
2- 3%
3- 14%
4- 3%
5- 1%

3) For companies having engaged with the Republic of Cuba, using a scale of one (1-lowest) to five (5 -highest) the expectations of the company continuing meaningful (self-defined) commercial activities within the Republic of Cuba during the next two years:  
1- 2%
2- 0%
3-27%
4- 4%
5-67%

4) The respondents from companies that were not engaged with the Republic of Cuba were asked to, using a percentage, predict when their company expected to engage with the Republic of Cuba.  The following are the averages from the respondents:
2016- 3%
2017-8%
2018-10%
2019-12%
2020-11%
2021-10%
2022-4%
2023-3%
2024-3%
2025-10%
Never- 26%

5) The respondents whose companies had not engaged with the Republic of Cuba were asked to describe whether their visit to the Republic of Cuba had been worth the time and the expense, based upon their expectations:
Worth It- 18%
Not Worth It- 78%
No Answer- 4%