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President Barack Obama Visits Cuba, Emphasizes Business Potential 

Manuel Marquez MD


With past experience as a health care manager, Manuel Marquez, MD, now serves in the travel industry as a certified tour director. Manuel Marquez, MD, has done extensive work with Road Scholar, leading educational tours aimed at older adults, and is currently at Insight Vacations. He has brought groups to Cuba on four occasions and was present during President Barack Obama's historic visit to the island nation.

Reflecting a thaw in the tensions that date back to the Cold War, President Obama’s March 2016 trip to Cuba was the first by a U.S. commander-in-chief since Calvin Coolidge visited Havana in 1928. Part of a delegation estimated at a thousand people, President Obama and his family met with U.S. Embassy staff members and toured historic Old Havana, despite a tropical storm.

President Obama also attended a business-focused event and encouraged budding entrepreneurs to create new companies, despite a constrictive economy that is still state-run. He held up 34-year-old Airbnb founder Brian Chesky as an example of what is possible at a young age. A culmination of the visit involved productive meetings between the President and Cuban leader Raul Castro, with an emphasis on forging better future relations.

With past experience as a health care manager, Manuel Marquez, MD, now serves in the travel industry as a certified tour director. Manuel Marquez, MD, has done extensive work with Road Scholar, leading educational tours aimed at older adults, and is currently at Insight Vacations. He has brought groups to Cuba on four occasions and was present during President Barack Obama's historic visit to the island nation.

Reflecting a thaw in the tensions that date back to the Cold War, President Obama’s March 2016 trip to Cuba was the first by a U.S. commander-in-chief since Calvin Coolidge visited Havana in 1928. Part of a delegation estimated at a thousand people, President Obama and his family met with U.S. Embassy staff members and toured historic Old Havana, despite a tropical storm.