The arrival of international tourists to Cuba increased by more than 500% in the first seven months of this year compared to the same period in 2021, but it is still far from the figures recorded before the pandemic.
The National Office of Statistics and Information (Onei) said that from January to July 2022, 834,891 tourists arrived on the island, which means an increase of 590% compared to the 141,293 travelers in the first seven months of the previous year.
International tourism is the main economic activity in Cuba, after the sale of medical services, but it has collapsed in the last two years as a result of the covid pandemic and the restrictive measures, still in force, imposed by the United States on Cuba.
The total number of vacationers that reached 4.2 million in 2019 and fell to one million a year later when the pandemic broke out.
With the pandemic under control, the national authorities maintain the aspiration of reaching 2.5 million this year.
One of the hopes is the recovery of Russian tourism, which during 2020 and 2021 was the leader of the issuing markets, historically led by Canada.
Last week, the Cuban ambassador in Moscow, Julio Garmendía, declared to the Russian newspaper Izvestia that work is being done to restore flights in the winter, suspended due to the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
“We know that the Russians are eager to return to vacation in Cuba and the Cubans are waiting for them with all the hospitality that characterizes them,” said the diplomat in a review published by the official Cubadebate blog.
However, the data published by Onei point to a reactivation of visits from Canada, once again the leader this year, with 258,896 tourists, followed by Cubans residing abroad.
Last July, Cuba ceded the operation of all the lodging centers and other extra-tourist activities in Cayo Largo del Sur, a paradisiacal island in the south of the country, to the Canadian hotel group Blue Diamond.
That hotel group, which now has 10,900 lodging rooms in Cuba, is gaining ground on the island by taking control of the luxurious Paseo del Prado hotel, which will become Royalton Habana.
