Pandemic reduces 94% of tourist arrivals to Cuba so far in 2021

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Some 64,712 foreign tourists visited Cuba in the first four months of the year, barely 6% of the 983,099 who did so in the same period of 2020, official sources reported Saturday.

The figure represented 918,387 fewer visitors compared to a similar stage last year, Cuba’s National Statistics and Information Office (Onei) disclosed on its website.

The report confirmed that more than half of the tourists arriving on the island this year (33,592) were Russians, followed by Cubans living abroad, Germans, Spaniards, and Canadians.

The Caribbean country currently receives four weekly flights from Russia, so there are more than 2,400 tourists from that nation every day of the week, said Cuban Tourism Minister Juan Carlos García, who in March attended the MITT 2021 tourism fair in Moscow.

Garcia recalled that every traveler undergoes a PCR test once they enter Cuban territory, where -he assured- there are many “safe” destinations for visitors such as Varadero, Cayo Coco, Cayo Santa María, and Cayo Largo.

The sanitary protocol in force at the moment establishes that travelers need a negative PCR performed no more than 72 hours before arrival to enter Cuba, plus a second test at the border upon entering the country.

Afterward, tourists must remain in quarantine in a hotel until they test negative in a third PCR five days after their arrival. At the same time, Cubans can choose between going to a paid hotel or a free state isolation center, where they remain until the result of the third test is known.

Cuba, which has been reporting more than 1,000 daily cases of covid-19 for weeks, suspended commercial and charter flights in April 2020 to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

In October of that year, it reopened airports, but infections soared, many attributed to non-compliance with isolation protocols for travelers.

For this reason, since January, flights from the United States, Mexico, Panama, Bahamas, Haiti, Dominican Republic, and Colombia have been reduced to a minimum.

Before the arrival of the pandemic, tourism represented Cuba’s second official source of foreign currency income -only after the sale of professional services abroad- and contributed around 10% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

According to official data, the country aspired to receive around 4.5 million international visitors in 2020 and reverse the 9.3 % drop of 2019, when 4.2 million tourists traveled to the country, 436,352 fewer than in 2018.