Despite a decrease in travellers due to the strengthening of the U.S. sanctions and the prohibition of cruise trips Cuba received 3 million foreign visitors. Canada is its firsts issuing market.
On Thursday, the Cuban Ministry of Tourism (MINTUR) mentioned that the arrival of three million international travellers was achieved despite campaigns targeted and directed by the U.S. government to prevent the flow of tourist to the country.
It proves Cuba is a safe and hospitable destination and shows the confidence and recognition achieved by the Cuban tourism.
It is expected that Cuba will close the year with 4.3 million tourists instead of the 5.1 million which was the initial estimation. This will have a 10% year-on-year impact on the local tourism and leisure industry, a second source of hard currency income for the country.
During the Parliament’s sessions in last July, Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero said that the suspension of cruise visits by the Donald Trump administration will affect more than 560,000 Americans in what remains of the year.
Since last June there are prohibition on travel by private planes, yachts and cruise ships to the island that makes visits of Americans to the island more difficult.
It was reported by MINTUR that Canada was the main tourism-issuing market for the island followed by the European markets.
Russia was marked as the market with the highest growth rate and with a development perspective for the coming seasons of tourism on the island.
As per the official data in 2018 Cuba received around 137,000 visitors from Russia and so far this year the market grew by 40.3 per cent.
MINTUR said that the country was once again ratified as a Caribbean destination for its nature, heritage, culture, safety and hospitality.
Havana is celebrating this year 500 years and received more than 50% of the visitors who arrive to the island and is a hub for international meetings.
So the Cuban tourism authorities expressed their objective of betting on the modality of event tourism.
It is forecasted by the officials that in 2019 , 5.1 million foreign tourists and an income of 3 billion dollars.
