Over 1 million tourists have visited Cuba by May

Havana, June 22 (RHC)-- After a sharp fall caused by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and other causes, the Cuban tourism sector is recovering. Evidence of this resurgence is that up to the end of May, 1,070,350 tourists had visited the island,  three times more than in 2021.

Doctor of Science José Luis Perelló, a tourism expert, announced in the context of the 15th International Seminar on Journalism and Tourism held in Havana.

The researcher recalled that, in 2020, tourism faced a formidable crisis, both in depth and scope, because of the COVID-19 epidemic and the reinforcement of the U.S. Blockade by the Trump administration.

The country returned to a tourism performance similar to 1996 when the first million international visitors came.

In 2020, 1 085 920 tourists arrived in the nation, far below the 4 000 000 reached between 2016 and 2019.

In 2021 -continued the expert- the highly negative impacts of the pandemic and the economic crisis affected most countries; the Russian market started to travel to the Caribbean, mainly to Cuba and the Dominican Republic.

The rest of the countries of origin tightened restrictions, which caused the island's tourism performance to decline, with the arrival of only 356,453 vacationers.

For 2022, although far from the perspectives, a recovery process has begun. In January, the primary market was Russia; but by February, March, and April, Canada--the most significant historical issuer of tourists to Cuba-- returned to occupy the first position, the professor added.

He pointed out that Cuba currently has more than 80,000 hotel rooms and 20,000 private rooms, with a projection of 95,000 rooms by 2030, of which 28% would be in Havana.