Although the Cuban government has not stopped investing millions of dollars and Cuban pesos, year after year, In the tourism and hotel sector on the island, the official figures from the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI) confirm that this money is not being recovered, since the hotels are mostly empty.
According to a report on tourism indicators, published this week by the ONEI
, between January and December of last year, hotel occupancy was at a minimum, with just 15.6%. Something that the sector’s own workers have been denouncing in recent months, the island’s hotels are without tourists.
If this hotel occupancy is compared to 2021, in the midst of a pandemic, the figures They don’t seem so bad, because at that time, age was just over 5%, but that is not a measure taking into account the global health crisis. To compare it, you just have to go to the figures for 2019, the year preceding the pandemic and cover your face with shame. In that year, occupancy was almost 49%.
The figures only indicate that Cuba is still far from a recovery in one of its most important sectors and that more currencies enter the country. And if the Cuban figures are compared with other nations, such as the Dominican Republic, it is more sad, because in resorts like Punta Cana, in 2022, the people of Quisqueyan achieved more than 70%. Tourist areas of the Canary Islands or the Balearic Islands in Spain, also exceeded 65% in the previous year.
TOURISM CRISIS IN CUBA
Despite these figures The Cuban government has not stopped investing in the construction of more hotels and opening new tourist poles, such as the one that is being developed in the northern cays of Camagüey. If hotel occupancy is low, the profits of the sector also decrease drastically, so they went to 800 million dollars this year, compared to more than 2 billion in 2019
International tourists also decreased their spending on the island, given the low gastronomic offer and the basic extra-hotel services. On average they spent a little more than 400 dollars in 2022, while four years ago they exceeded 600. However, despite this, the government insists on these investments and ensures that the number of visitors this year will exceed three million.
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