There's a change in the air in Cuba as relations warm between the United States administration and the Cuban government. The US administration has eased travel restrictions and opened a wide range of new export opportunities with the communist island. Around 100, 000 American tourists have been visiting the island each year, since 2011, on educational organised trips called 'people to people'. The winds of change are blowing in Havana. U.S. tourists are roaming the streets of Old Havana, listening to lectures on Art Deco architecture and meeting with jazz musicians. What they aren't doing yet - at least most of the time - is lounging in the sun and sipping mojitos at white-sand-beach resorts. American citizens have been allowed to visit Cuba on such "people to people" trips since 2011, one of President Barack Obama's first moves toward detente with the communist-run island - provided their scheduled activities are sufficiently educational, and down time is kept to a minimum. American Hannah Berkeley Cohen runs CubanRising.org, which organises cultural tours for American visitors. ''I really like to stray away from the more conventional norm of bringing peoples.......I like to take more intimate groups so we can truly have a cultural interaction between Americans and Cubans'' she explains. Today Berkeley Cohen is bringing American tourists Joe Flood and Jeremy Reff to her favourite Havana haunts. Flood says the scheme brings them into contact to ordinary Cubans who they wouldn't normally get the chance to meet. ''We had the chance to hang out and meet normal folks and see things and talk to the in their own terms, in their own homes...... When you really travelling well you feel more like a guest and less like a tourist and 'People to People' has been like that" says Flood. Berkley Cohen wants to unpick the myths about Cuba for her clients. "Its much less glamorous as far as trying to unearth what we think, or what our grandparents or our parents saw Cuba as and it's more about how Cubans live in modern-day Cuba, " she explains. Cuba is expected to be transformed in the near future by improving relations with the United States. The U.S. is easing the rules on visiting Cuba, and that will mean major changes for the trips, which are currently so tightly regulated that operators must submit extensive documentation to the Treasury Department, including detailed justification for all activities to prove they are sufficiently educational. For Americans who don't have family on the island or fit into one of the handful of other categories for legal visits, the trips have been the only way to visit the island. General tourism to Cuba is still prohibited by the half-century old trade embargo, and it would take an act of Congress to lift it. "I guess I always wanted to go to Cuba. It seems like a place that has changed a lot in recent years and will change more coming up and I wanted to see it now while I got the opportunity before those things happen." says Flood. After visiting a market the trio set off to meet Yanet Vila, who is trying to move home, at her house. "You can either buy or you can trade or you can trade with money on top, so she is looking to do any one of those three options." Berkley Cohen explains. The tourists are welcomed into Vila's home, who is looking forward to more contact with Cuba's neighbours. 'I think we can do good business with the Americans, everything is going to be great '' she says. The celebrated American writer Ernest Hemmingway's Cuba home is a must-do for any US tourist. Hemmingway's villa in the Havana suburbs still bears aspects of his personality, the game trophies, bookcases and a typewriter. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/b9705e8bfd3ef225edd1e5d593f8f98c Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork

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