Cuba to see record 2.4M tourists in 2009, but discounts hurt revenues

Cuba to see record 2.4M tourists in 2009, but discounts hurt revenues
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

HAVANA, Cuba — Cuba says more than 2.4 million tourists will come to the sun-kissed island by the end of the year, up 3.3 per cent from 2008's record, though deep discounts and shorter stays mean vacation industry revenues are down overall.

The country will break the previous year's mark of 2.34 million visitors by nearly 80,000, fuelled by 2,000 new hotel rooms in top tourist areas, including Havana and Varadero, a white-sand beach north of the capital, Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz said in Thursday editions of the Communist party newspaper Granma.

He did not say how much Cuban tourism took in and, unlike in previous years, no information on vacation industry revenue was made public during the year-end meeting of Cuba's parliament Sunday.

Marrero said in November that his ministry's revenues would fall about 11.7 per cent, as Cuba has been forced to slash prices because of the global recession.

Foreign visitors generated over $2.7 billion in revenue for Cuba last year, a 13.5 per cent increase from 2007.

The number of travellers to Cuba has also been boosted by the Obama administration's decision to let Cuban-Americans with family on the island visit as often as they like.

It is difficult to measure the change's precise impact, however, since many are counted by immigration authorities as Cubans - not foreign visitors - when they visit their homeland.

But companies that operate charter flights say bookings are up 30 per cent since the White House eased restrictions. The weekend before Christmas, there were at least 18 flights from the U.S. to Cuba on a single day.

Previously, Cuban exiles could visit their homeland only once every three years. Washington's nearly half-century-old trade embargo keeps most other Americans from visiting altogether.

A top Cuban government official, speaking on anonymity because he was not authorized to have his name appear in print, said 200,000 Cuban-Americans will visit in 2009, about double last year's tally.

Marrero said Canada remains the top source of visitors, with more than 900,000 coming from that country this year, followed by the United Kingdom and Spain.

The Canadian Press: Cuba to see record 2.4M tourists in 2009, but discounts hurt revenues (24 December 2009)
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5iNMjzKA2vpCmuz8mNaAyBVi89_Eg
.

Relevant Pages

  • Cuba waits on Castro
    ... Cuba is milking its tourists like never before as all await what will happen post-Fidel, ... The young coffee-coloured Cuban guy who was trying to sell us cigars on our first night in Havana said he needed the money to buy milk. ... Cubans are denied access to the internet for fear they would be "contaminated", although a pre-broadband version is available to tourists at most hotels, for a charge. ... Tourists are seen as "walking wallets" and frequently approached in Havana by people looking for money, especially plaintive mothers with babies in their arms as well as rum-sodden aul' codgers who thirst for more. ...
    (soc.culture.cuba)
  • Cuba: Close, but no cigar for U.S. tourists
    ... Cuba and its tourism industry are ramping up with hip hotels, Chinese-made tour buses and restaurants serving trendy international dishes, partly in anticipation of an influx of Americans and their greenbacks. ... On the street below, near crumbling apartment buildings of Old Havana, a boy peers through the hotel restaurant's window and stretches a hand toward patrons nibbling delicacies unavailable to the average rice-and-beans-eating Cuban, miming hunger. ... Cuba welcomes U.S. tourists, attracted despite the chance of fines or surrender of passports if caught when re-entering the USA. ...
    (soc.culture.cuba)
  • Cuba: "i am my own reporter"
    ... NEW FROM CUBA ... A reporter in Cuba with a tourist visa again: ... Chapter Six of Cuban Notebooks), and because both The Nation and the ... must be true and because tourists he's talked to say so. ...
    (soc.culture.cuba)
  • Cuba. Take an extra suitcase ... leave much-needed medicines and lifesaving gea
    ... The doctor looked tired and a bit wary. ... Here she was at the end of what must have been a long shift at the Policlinico Universitario Aguacate, confronted by two obviously foreign visitors trying to press on her a suitcase brimming with drugs and medical supplies. ... She studied the letter explaining in Spanish that the contents were a gift from Canada to the people of Cuba, looked again at the case and did what any government employee would do. ... Our efforts to get off the beaten path notwithstanding, the Not Just Tourists process couldn't be easier. ...
    (soc.culture.cuba)
  • Question to Dan Christensen: how many medicines did you take to Cuba on your supposed March trip?
    ... Dan Christensen claims he went to the "Brisas" all in resort in Cuba in March. ... He never mentioned taking any medicines. ... The doctor looked tired and a bit wary. ... Our efforts to get off the beaten path notwithstanding, the Not Just Tourists process couldn't be easier. ...
    (soc.culture.cuba)