Cross Cultural Journeys mentioned in The Wall Street Journal
Cross Cultural Journeys was mentioned in The Wall Street Journal this week! In an article published 9/16 about the challenges Cuba is facing as it struggles to meet the growing tourism demand from the US, our CEO Cilla Utne said:
“If you have large groups you have to almost steer them outside of Havana, and if you want to stay in Havana you have to stay on the outskirts,” she said following a recent trip with a group of American business students.
What unfortunately didn’t make it into the article was the real reason the business students were in Cuba. Cilla was leading a delegation of 16 students and faculty from her alma mater, the Bainbridge Graduate Institute at Pinchot, the first green MBA program in the U.S. The group, based in Seattle, was there to study the Cuban political and economic system, and examine ways to support sustainable entrepreneurship and social innovation as the island nation faces a tsunami of new tourists and investment dollars in the coming years.
They met WSJ reporter Ryan Dube in the bar at Havana’s historic Hotel Nacional, where he interviewed Cilla and several other members of the delegation extensively about the opportunities and threats that the easing of the U.S. embargo pose to Cuba’s social and economic order, as well as it’s unique culture and pristine natural environment, which have remained largely untouched by the cultural and economic influences of Hollywood and Wall Street for over 50 years. Hopefully Dube will have a chance to explore that story in a followup piece.
