​Commercial Travel to Cuba Could Be Good for Many

Opening up travel to Cuba from the United States will have a major impact on commerce in the Caribbean. Recently, American Airlines (AAL) and JetBlue (JBLU) received approval from the Cuban government to begin commercial airline service to airports on the island. From a business perspective, anyone can see that this is potentially just the start of what is to come. Opening up new ports of business is good for competition and allows for businesses big and small to tap a new well that was unavailable until now.

One business that could benefit from this recent development is The Herzfeld Caribbean Basin Fund, Inc. (CUBA) because it invests in issuers that are likely, in the Advisor's view, to benefit from economic, political, structural and technological developments in the countries in the Caribbean Basin, which the Fund considers to consist of Cuba, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, Barbados, Aruba, Haiti, the Netherlands Antilles, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela and the United States.

Opening up the airways to Cuba brings to mind several historical events like the Oklahoma Land Rush or California Gold Rush whereby settlers embarked on seemingly unthinkable journeys with hopes and dreams of a fresh start. In several years, we will see a Starbucks (SBUX) on every corner street in Havana, a Wal-Mart (WMT) in every community, and countless McDonalds (MCD) overflowing with customers buying egg mcmuffins before heading off to work at the local Bank of America (BAC) branch.