SLP, Mexico.- In the midst of an urgent need to recover the volume of visitors international, and having already arrived at the peak tourist season, the Cuban regime has gone all in and invested in repairs and “improvements” in tourist 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.”
In Varadero, the Blau Varadero hotel had renovations in its rooms, lobby and recreation areas, collected the Cuban News Agency.
For its part, Sol Palmeras, the first foreign-managed hotel in Cuba, has rooms with renovated furniture, walls, and electrical installations. The water circuit, pipes, bathroom, bathtubs, mattresses, air conditioning were also renewed, while there are Cubans who wait for years for the repair or delivery of the houses that they have lost due to meteorological phenomena.
Likewise, they modernized the lobbies of the Cactus and Tuxpan accommodations, repaired the walkways with access to the beach at the Iberostar Selection Varadero, and implemented a new golf lesson service for the Russian market at the Meliá las Américas hotel.
“Pleasing Canada, Russia, Germany, its main emitters, Poland and others with fewer flows, will involve optimizing quality as the number one ally, and generating as many initiatives as conditions allow, without losing sight of any factor that jeopardizes effectiveness. of the operations,” the official newspaper stated. Workers.
Ibia Betancourt, subdelegate of the Ministry of Tourism (MINTUR) in Matanzas, told that medium that the repair was “necessary.”
“We are satisfied with the improvements in most of the hotel and non-hotel facilities in Varadero, the city of Matanzas and the Ciénaga de Zapata, all in order to raise comfort, standards and benefits,” he said.
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.
“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 the Minister of Tourism, Juan Carlos García Granda.
In his opinion, tourism has to be the “locomotive” of the Cuban economy, which justifies the large volume of investment that continues to receive, in detriment of branches such as Health and Education.
This year, the Cuban regime doubled investment in hotels and restaurants during the period between January and June 2024.
In 2023, investments were made in hotels and restaurants 2,325 million of pesos between January and June, and during the same period, that figure rose to 4,931 in 2024, which implied an increase of 112%.
In the area of Business Services, 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.
