SLP, Mexico.- The Cuban economist Pedro Monreal He considered it a lie and a hallucination that the regime continues to refer to tourism as the “locomotive of the Cuban economy,” when the numbers of international visitors to the country and the low hotel occupancy indicate the opposite.
In reference to recent statements by the Minister of Tourism Juan Carlos García Granda, who expressed to the official newspaper Granma that the sector has to be the driver of the Cuban economy, Pedro Monreal objected that it was a justification to explain the “nonsense” investment policy of the Government.
“They lie blatantly. There is not a single official Cuban statistic that supports such a hallucination. “They try to justify the crazy investment policy that has relegated food security, infrastructure and basic services,” he wrote this Monday in x the Cuban expert.
Its text is accompanied by an image of the cover of a note from the Castro press regarding the minister’s statements: “Cuba ratifies tourism as the locomotive of its economy.”
Even though the regime has recognized that this year’s forecast of receiving three million visitors will not be met, officials continue to bet everything on that sector.
They lie blatantly. There is not a single official Cuban statistic that supports such a hallucination. They try to justify the crazy investment policy that has relegated food security, infrastructure and basic services pic.twitter.com/FLc0lSufEv
— Pedro Monreal (@pmmonreal) November 18, 2024
“We have taken all possible measures to improve the indicators, at the same time that tourism wholesale supplier companies were created, some with 100% foreign capital, so we will have a better position than last year’s high season,” he told Granma Garcia Granda.
With the speech that tourism is the basis of the Cuban economy, the official justifies the large volume of investment that continues to receive, in detriment of branches such as Health and Education and basic services.
And this year the Cuban regime doubled investment in hotels and restaurants. If in 2023 they were invested in these items 2,325 million of pesos between January and June, during the same period that figure rose to 4,931 in 2024, which implied an increase of 112%.
In the Business Services sector, real estate and rental activities, which includes the construction of hotels, 11,389 million pesos were allocated, 26.4% of the total budget.
Hotels and restaurants (with 11.4%) and the previous sector (26.4%), followed by the manufacturing industry (with 19.5%), add up to more than 50% of the total investments in the country.
Amid the need to increase the volume of visitors international, and with the peak tourist season having already arrived, the Cuban regime has allocated resources to repairs and “improvements” in hotel facilities.
According to the articles that have appeared in the official press to praise the recovery efforts of the tourism sector, the hotel facilities received “constructive benefits.”
Among them, renovations are listed in rooms, lobby, recreation areas, furniture, walls, electrical installations, water circuit, pipes, bathroom, bathtubs, mattresses, air conditioning, while there are Cubans who wait for years for repair or delivery of the houses they have lost due to meteorological phenomena.
