The new venture from Alan Meadows and business partner Adarsh Shah, Simply Cuba, will launch in early May.

Meadows was previously business development director at Live Cuba, whose parent company Live Holidays ceased trading as an Atol holder in October 2022. Live Cuba was itself born from the collapse of Cuba Holidays parent The Holiday Place in 2019. 

Two company collapses that were no fault of Meadows have not deterred him from wanting to further his passion for Cuba.  “It’s such a wonderful country – it’s hard to walk away from,” he said.

He said both previous Cuba brands had been successful despite their parent companies’ woes. “The two companies I created and ran were profitable," said Meadows. "I have no doubt we can get there again; we have a clean slate."

The latest revival of a Cuba tour operation resulted from a meeting at WTM with Shah, who was Holiday Place sales director. “He had a company, Simply Flights, which had an Atol for three years, but hadn’t really used it. He said he thought there was a place for a trade-only operator again.”

Simply Cuba is finalising its website and Facebook page and will send out paper brochures to agents in around six weeks as it seeks commercial terms with major consortia. “People are saying it’s great to have us back because they remember the service levels they received,” Meadows said.

He is a passionate about Cuba and urges agents to consider the destination to help its inhabitants. The US still has a trade embargo with the island that makes day-to-day life difficult for Cuba’s people. “Cuba is going through a tough time because of the embargo, that’s why tourism is so important,” he said.

Meadows said Simply Cuba would offer agents commission that would "set it apart” from others in the space, adding it would be paid on the total package price including taxes and charges.

Cuba suffered a potential setback in May 2022 when Virgin Atlantic announced it would not restore the UK’s only non-stop flight. However, Meadows said this had not been a handicap at his previous brand. “Even when Virgin flew there, we were doing good levels of bookings with Air Europa (via Madrid) and with KLM and Air France.”

The latest venture from Meadows will include the staple Havana and Varadero combination but also tours to less well-known areas. Accommodation will feature homestays, known as Casa Particulars. “They give a real sense of day-to-day Cuban life and give money directly back to the local population,” he said.

Meadows added Simply Cuba had no first year sales target but that there was “definitely” room in the market for another specialist. “Cuba is a bucket list destination,” he said.