Given the temporary closure of hotels and the difficulties of transportation from rural areas to tourist centers, tourism workers in Matanzas are already being relocated to other vacant positions in the municipalities, a direct consequence of the oil blockade from the United States to the island.
In that province, due to the impossibility of traveling from the most distant territories to the Hicacos Peninsula or to the main municipality, the municipal labor directorates evaluate several job offers for them, indicates a report from Giron.
“Vacant positions are being identified in the municipal Labor Directorates and there are job offers,” Cándido Lázaro González Valera, director of Labor and Social Security of the province, told the media, without detailing which positions they have begun to fill.
“A review had to be done because, for example, the ones we had from Micons and Tourism today are not an option,” added the official from the province, which today has more than 8 thousand vacant positions distributed in all municipalities.
According to Girón, of the 8,459 workers working remotely, around 1,800 do so from home, 6,400 in the field and 240 in the teleworking modality.
“There is a range of people who are working in their homes, demanding that they fulfill the task and not the formality of the hours worked. So that this results in fewer occupied offices and fewer personnel traveling, which is the effect of the measure according to the energy conditions that the country has,” explained González Valera.
The priority for granting places today goes to Education workers – given the need for teachers after the decentralization of educational centers – and Agriculture, due to the urgency of producing food, the official concluded.
Closure of hotels and transfer of tourists
At the beginning of February, the Cuban Government began to close some hotels and transfer tourists to other facilities as part of the package of measures adopted in response to the US oil siege.
The deputy prime minister, Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga, then assured on state television that a tourism plan had been designed “to reduce energy consumption, compact tourist facilities and take advantage of the high season that is currently taking place in our country.”
The also head of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment did not specify details about this “compaction” of the tourist infrastructure, but it undoubtedly mainly affects some tourist facilities located in the resort of Varadero and the keys in the north of the island.
Among the main hotel chains that operate in Cuba are the Spanish Meliá and Iberostar, and the Canadian Blue Diamond, among others.
Worst record of international travelers
The tourism sector in Cuba, once considered the engine of the island’s economy, confirmed its crisis in 2025 by closing with its worst record of international travelers (1.8 million) since 2002, not counting the years of covid-19.
Cuba closes hotels and relocates tourists due to fuel shortages
The figure does not come as a surprise – in the first half, the hotel occupancy rate registered an annual decrease of seven percentage points (21.5%) – but it does confirm the precipitous drop in tourism in the last seven years.
Cuba has been suffering a serious energy crisis since mid-2024 due to the frequent breakdowns of its obsolete thermoelectric plants and the lack of foreign currency to import the fuels necessary to fuel distributed generation.
The US military operation in Caracas on January 3 meant for Havana, in addition to the blow to a key regional ally, the end of vital energy supplies for the island.
The Government, to face this scenario, launched the emergency plan for fuel shortages that also includes rationing fuel sales, prioritizing teleworking and implementing blended classes at universities.
