Currently, in Varadero resort, some 120 kilometers east of Havana city, there is the only 18-hole golf course in the country. But this statement has very little time to live on. Recently, the Cuban government has signed a number of projects with foreign companies for the construction of golf courses of this type, as part of the expansion of tourism offers for the next semester.
The most comprehensive of the new projects approved has been proposed by the British firm Essence to build the Carbonera Club estimated to cost some 350 million dollars. This company reached an official agreement with the Cuban government to develop this course, a few meters from the coast.
“It will be an important complement to the tourist offer of the resort of Varadero and the beginning of a whole new policy to increase the presence of golf in Cuba,” Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero said.
Construction will begin in 2014 on a design that will transform the area of 170 hectares where they intend to have the club area. Carbonera drafts, besides the golf course, feature an exclusive community of 650 apartments and villas, as well as a hotel and country club, tennis courts, spa and marina.
Weeks ago, the executive director of Essence, Andrew McDonald, said the excitement they felt for having achieved the project since they had been working on it for seven years at least.
But this is not the only project in progress; a second with Chinese investment has also been approved for launch later this year. Similarly, other courses will be opened gradually in the island with Spanish, Vietnamese and Russian capital investments.
It is the first time that Cuba is open to investments of its kind in the country, with this opening allowing foreign citizens to buy property in these sites.
According to McDonald, Cuba will fit very well in this market and will be very popular, because golfers are attracted to travel to new places. However, for the island to become a destination for this market, the nation needs more courses than it plans to build.
The news also paves the way for the practice of this sport on the island. There are already talks about the creation of a Cuban Federation of Golf from the International Olympic Committee’s decision to include it in the programme for the upcoming Olympics. The new tourist facilities could support this project.
