Cuban businessmen, or “mules” as they are known on the island, engaged in “shopping tourism” abroad continue to use these roads to live on the island and resell their products to continue paying for travel and their status to improve in the midst of a major crisis.
Currently, the mule activity continues with numerous options, with direct and charter flights, as well as packages, like those in Venezuela, where you are taken directly to the “shopping center” to make purchases. Today we give you three options that can be very useful for you.
We’ll start with the most popular these days: Islas Margarita, Venezuela. According to official figures, the “Cuban Mules” leave around $5,000 in purchases with each trip, which they later recoup by selling on the island at super-high prices. They’ll say it’s not their problem that the island is devastated.
For example, if you buy packages with Cubatur, even the Venezuela visa for this activity is included. They are seven-day packages with Estelar airline and even Conviasa. The visa costs $50. Includes airport pick up, round trip ticket, daily drop off to local shops and two suitcases. You can pay additional $150. The price of these packages is over 900 dollars.
SHOPPING TOURISM FROM CUBA
But Isla Margarita is not the only one. A very popular destination for “shopping tourism” from Cuba has always been Nicaragua, which also does not require an entry visa for Cubans. Before it became the gateway to the United States’ southern border, “Cuban mules” dropped thousands of dollars in shops and businesses in Nicaragua.
In 2019, about 2,000 Cubans came to Nicaragua every month to make these purchases and then resell them in their shops on the island. In Nicaragua’s oriental market, which has around 20,000 shops, the number of Cubans buying has multiplied. They came in groups and looking for the best prices. The trend has died down, but there are still direct flights with Conviasa and Aruba.
Finally another destination in the Dominican Republic that is currently offering help for family reunification tourism in Punta Cana and where “the mules” are also creeping in. Since 2021, Dominican businessmen and businessmen have been asking their government to make it easier for these Cubans to enter the country for “shopping tourism.” There are direct flights with Air Century.
“We are not asking for Cubans to be deprived of visas, but rather that through our federation we can serve as a kind of umbrella for the merchants who come here to do their shopping to bring them to Cuba. That a simple business visa will be granted and that they will come and stay here,” said Abel Vasquer Hevia, President of the Federation of Dominican Micro, Small and Medium-sized Entrepreneurs.