The tourists visiting Cuba As of this Tuesday, they will have visas to enter the Island with a duration of 90 days —three times more than before— and the possibility of a single extension for the same period.
The announcement was made last Saturday by the branch minister, Juan Carlos García Granda, on his Twitter account without giving further details about the implementation.
The measure has not yet been published in the Official Gazette of Cuba, but it has already been disseminated by state tourism agencies and by some of the Island’s Embassies around the world.
As of November 1 of this year, the validity of the visa is extended #Tourism to 90 days of permanence in the national territory – extendable only once for the same period – which allows the extension of the stay of foreign visitors in #Cuba pic.twitter.com/P7i0UA9UJJ
– Juan Carlos Garcia Granda (@JuannCarlosGG) October 29, 2022
This extension in the period of stay of international visitors on the Island comes into force days after the authorities recognized that Cuba will not reach the goal of receiving 2.5 million tourists this year and they will lower their forecast for 2022 by 32%.
Tourism is the second largest item of gross domestic product and the second largest source of foreign currency in the country, behind the export of services, mainly health.
The most recent report from the National Office of Statistics and Information released in mid-October indicates that Cuba received 1,396,921 travelers in the first 8 months of 2022.
The data represents more than double the 573,944 who visited the country throughout the previous year, according to official data. However, it is far from the 3.5 million in 2019, a year before the pandemic.
