The long-term prospects for business education in Cuba are undoubtedly bright following the warming of relations between Washington and Havana. But how quickly such opportunities will unfold for those schools with connections to the Caribbean island state is a tougher question to answer.
For US business schools, the opening up of access to Cuba has been an unmitigated success in one regard, according to professors such as Stephan Meier at Columbia Business School in New York. His school is one of several to have taken advantage of the ability for US-based academic institutions to visit Cuba for study trips. In fact, his biggest headache has been running enough trips to satisfy the demand from students, particularly those with US passports who would not otherwise be able to travel abroad.
In three years, Prof Meier has taken 120 students to Cuba. But he could have taken many more, he says. “Cuba is exotic,” he explains.