Almost half a million visitors arrived in Cuba up to February

Almost half a million visitors, 489,000 foreigners, arrived in Cuba until late February this year, which represents 51 % in relation to the same period of 2019.

The Cubadebate website explained that of the 67.2% of the total number of tourists is represented by the markets of Canada, the United States and Cubans living abroad.

Canadian tourism arrivals reached 80% compared to 2019, by receiving 252,650 travelers, while from the other main destinations came 51,187 nationals residing in other countries and 24,451 US nationals, the text specified.

It pointed out that low figures continue in relation to the European market due to the non-recovery of long-distance travel from the Old Continent and the insufficiency of air connections and until last month the main numbers were represented by Russia, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and Spain.

For the first five days of March, only 470 flights landed at Cuba's international airports and only 12,180 visitors and 3,794 boat crew members have arrived by sea due to restrictions from the U.S., the main issuer of cruise ships and yachts in the Caribbean.

Last year, 1,614,087 visitors were received, of which 1,585,712 traveled by air, while the rest were yachtsmen and cruisers with ships coming from the old continent.

According to the projections of the Ministry of Tourism, this year is expected to receive 3.5 million foreigners, which indicates that the first four months of the year should accumulate 42.1% of the arrivals, approximately one 1,475,000 visitors