Few destinations have a relationship with Canada quite like Cuba. For more than four decades, Canadians have spent winters on its beaches, raised glasses with its hoteliers, and built friendships with the guides, drivers, bartenders and front desk teams who turn a week in Varadero or Cayo Coco into the kind of memory people carry for life. Canada remains Cuba’s number one source market for international tourism, and the Canadian travel industry has been right at the centre of that story, selling Cuba, flying Cuba, championing Cuba — through every season the destination has had.
Today, that relationship steps into a new chapter. Travel Trendset has launched an ongoing monthly trade drive in support of the humanitarian shipments that the Canadian Network on Cuba (CNC) coordinates to the island in partnership with the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP). Working alongside the Cuba Tourist Board in Toronto, Travel Trendset will rally donations from across the Canadian travel community each month and channel them into the CNC and ICAP’s regular containers bound for Havana. CNC and ICAP handle the shipment, the logistics and the on-the-ground distribution. Travel Trendset’s role is to keep the trade plugged in.
The first contributor stepping up in a major way is Sunwing Vacations. Sunwing, Cuba’s most prominent Canadian tour operator partner for more than two decades, opened its Mississauga head office as the collection point and rallied its team around the cause. Donations poured in from Sunwing and WestJet staff: rice, pasta, cooking oil, canned goods, toilet paper, diapers, toothpaste, over-the-counter medicine and the kind of everyday staples that keep a household running. Every box dropped off personally by someone whose day job is sending Canadians to Cuba.
The thank-you came directly from Gihana Galindo, Director of the Cuba Tourist Board in Toronto, addressed to the Sunwing and WestJet teams who made the first month’s container possible:
“To all employees and directors at Sunwing Vacations and WestJet: On behalf of the tourism workers of Cuba, we extend our sincere thanks for your valuable contributions to the next humanitarian aid container for Cuba. Your commitment, solidarity, and generosity toward our country are truly appreciated. We are deeply grateful. Thank you very much.”
The drive came together the way the best things in this industry usually do. A conversation between Travel Trendset and Gihana about how the Canadian trade could practically help. A connection from Gihana to the CNC. Sunwing stepping forward to anchor the first month and rallying its team, alongside colleagues at WestJet, until there was enough on the floor in Mississauga to fill a container.
Gihana kept the Tourist Board’s role focused on its tourism mandate while making clear her support for the broader humanitarian effort. “Groups such as Not Just Tourists and the Canadian Network on Cuba are doing vital work coordinating medical supplies and solar energy initiatives,” she said, directing those interested in supporting humanitarian work to those organizations.
Drives like this work because the Canadian travel community already knows how to move when a partner needs help. The relationships are there. The network is there. The will is there.
It is also a model the trade can build on month after month. Future drives will rally around specific needs, school supplies, baby goods, medical items, and call on different corners of the industry each cycle. Sunwing set the tone in month one. The invitation now goes out to the rest of the trade for what comes next.
This month’s container leaves today. The supplies inside will travel through the CNC and ICAP’s established channels in Cuba and into the hands of the same Cuban tourism workers and families who have welcomed Canadian travellers for generations. That is what this industry can do when it shows up for the destinations that have shown up for it.
“Our team has worked alongside Cuban tourism partners for years, and the relationships we have built on the island go far beyond business. When the opportunity came to do something tangible for Cuban families, the answer was easy. This is a monthly commitment for us, and the door is open to the rest of the Canadian travel community to join us in whatever way makes sense for them.”
— Anthony Tozzi and Tristan Rodriguez, Travel Trendset
For travel trade members, suppliers or industry partners interested in contributing to next month’s drive, the door is wide open. Reach out directly to Travel Trendset to coordinate a donation through the monthly trade collection, or contact Samantha Hislop at the CNC at hislopsamantha@gmail.com for information on the CNC and ICAP’s broader humanitarian work and other ways to support Cuban families.
