Updated at 10 a.m. Friday to include comments from a Treasury Department spokeswoman.
American travel to Cuba, which has surged and dwindled through decades of political ups and downs, may soon be surging again.
The key, veteran tour operators say, is the end of an apparent logjam in the handling of travel licenses by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). That office is responsible for issuing and renewing the licenses that educational tour operators must have before they can sell Cuba tours to Americans.
The Treasury Department explicitly excludes trips that are “primarily tourist-oriented.” Tour operators that fail to meet guidelines face civil penalties of up to $65,000 per violation.