As best I can tell, it's only the newspapers of southern Florida that have picked up the possibility that Congress will act, this session, to end the embargo on tourism to Cuba. That's because an influential, five-term Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, William Delahunt, has now formally introduced legislation to do just that. Although the House of Representatives voted a couple of years ago to end the embargo, the lack of really powerful backing -- as well as a threatened veto by former President Bush -- has always made the House action purely symbolic and without the possibility of passage by the Senate as well. Delahunt's sponsorship may make a difference.

Removal of the embargo won't open the floodgates. Scarcely any excess hotel capacity in Havana would make it impossible for the Cubans to handle a surge of U.S. tourism. The large resort hotels on Veradero Beach (which I toured a few years ago, relying on my exemption as a journalist to avoid the embargo) are also almost totally packed with European tourists, and can't handle an additional wave of Americans.

Rather, the embargo's end would permit only two types of tourism, of which the most significant would be cruiseship visits for several days at a time, on vessels that come with their own accommodations and restaurant capacity. An empty cruiseship terminal stands waiting in the very center of Havana, and could probably accommodate a couple of large cruiseships anchored in the harbor.

Beyond that, the real immediate potential is for backpacker-type tourism. Already, Cuban regulations permit private families on the island to accept paying guests, and during the Clinton years, when young Americans violated the embargo with impunity (the Cuban customs officials didn't stamp their passports), this was the type of accommodation our youngsters used. I have also written in the past about various Canadian tour companies (MacQueen's Island Tours, www.wowcuba.com, is one) that operate bicycle tours of Cuba, scattering their participants in various smaller cities outside of Havana.

Anyway, we'll keep watching, and it may be possible that you soon will be able to get on a direct flight to this island just 90-or-so miles south of Key West. At a time when Americans are being urged to visit Vietnam, and even permitted to buy packages to North Korea, of all places, it makes no sense to keep them from Cuba.