The great and the good of Tinseltown are on the move.
Summering in St. Tropez, holidaying in The Hamptons and cruising through Coachella are falling out of favour.
Instead, our favourite celebrities are descending on Cuba.
But even their ever-present glam squads and Instagram filters do little do disguise that their latest destination is rather less salubrious than they.
Gossip websites nearly ground to a halt last month when the Kardashians landed en masse.
¡Más fotos! Hijos de #KimKardashian acaparan miradas en Cuba https://t.co/4n7NrvvEAq pic.twitter.com/B2CRZmrWp1
— Esmas Farándula (@EsmasFarandula) May 16, 2016
Locals reported that they passed their time on social media, with sporadic visits to Cuban tourist attractions such as the Museum of Rum. However, it wasn’t meant to be.
SEEING ERNEST HEMINGWAY'S HOUSE IN CUBA https://t.co/WusYvPpGXt pic.twitter.com/3ol1HXpnYw
— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) May 19, 2016
Kim and Kanye cut their holiday short, taking their children (North and Saint) and their entourage back to Los Angeles by private jet before planned – surrounded by speculation that they were not “culturally prepared” and couldn’t cope with the poor internet connection.
Rather unusually for the famous family, the Kardashians weren’t pioneer Cuban tourists.
BeyoncĂ© visited with Jay-Z in January 2013. The trip was labelled “controversial” by the media, with websites and blogs postulating that the power couple engaged in tourist activities that were illegal under the former US embargo against Cuba.
do your thing barack but jayz and beyonce had one of the best cuba visits of all time pic.twitter.com/DdAQrPTB2r
— Alazar (@zarzarbinkss) March 21, 2016
Incidentally, the Treasury Department’s Office of Inspector General later released a report confirming that Beyonce and Jay did not violate any US sanctions during their trip.
But it’s 2016 that has seen a sudden influx of the glitterati to Havana, hot on the heels on the US State Department ending its decades-old policy to isolate the Caribbean nation.
In March The Rolling Stones performed a “historic” free gig in the capital’s Ciudad Deportiva arena.
At the time, lead singer Mick Jagger commented “Cuba has… so many kinds of music, all of it brilliant… it was inevitable that we would play here one day.”
And from rock royalty to fashion palaces – this May, Chanel’s creative director Karl Lagerfeld transformed Havana’s grand colonial avenue Paseo Del Prado Street into a runway for the fashion house.
Tilda Swinton, Gisele Bundchen and Vin Diesel all flew in to grab a piece of the action, with Lagerfield claiming that Chanel’s 2017 Cruise Collection was inspired by the “cultural richness and the opening up of Cuba”.
The “opening up” of Cuba seems to have been lost amidst endless Instagram posts and irrelevant hashtags.
But despite the glitz and the glamour Hollywood A-Listers are project, a closer look at the realities of the island proves all that glitters is not gold.
Photographs of locals congregating on their balconies to catch a glimpse of the action on the streets below speak volumes for the wide Sargasso Sea that severs famous tourists from daily Cuban life.
They serve to demonstrate just how far Cuba has to come before the glamorous picture that our favourite cover-stars are persisting on portraying becomes anything like an accurate reflection of reality.
