Analysis: Cuba tourism sector “buried” by pandemic and poor strategies

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Tourism in Cuba is “hampered” due to the “chaotic management of the pandemic,” the “poor economic strategies” and the deficient use of financial resources by the Cuban government, highlights a new Havana Consulting Group report.

Not even the over US$17 billion investment in the last 6 years has served to rescue the tourism sector, the Cuban economic analyst added in its statements.

The report forecasts a very bleak outlook for the Cuban tourism industry in 2021, down 85% in late July this year compared to the same period in 2020 and 95% compared to 2019. In other words, the data show “a virtually dead industry,” it sentenced.

TOURISM IN DECLINE SINCE BEFORE THE PANDEMIC

The reality is that the Cuban tourism sector “has been practically shut down for 20 months,” a key industry in “decline” before the pandemic, specifically since 2018, when a 10.84% drop in European tourism (Germany, Italy, England, Spain and France) was recorded, the Miami-based firm’s report specified.

This trend continued in 2019 with a drop of almost double in the sector, plummeting 20.59% compared to 2018.

Overall, for the 2017-2019 period the total of visits to Cuba from the 5 main European issuers cited declined by 29.20%, while the North American market registered a very slight 0.09% decrease.

“The chaotic management of the pandemic by the Cuban government,” coupled with the “poor economic strategies” and bad use of financial resources, “have buried the tourism sector” on the island, the report insists in its conclusions.

Factors also contributing to the drop in international tourism are the shortage of food and medicines, the impact of Covid-19 and the “high inflation” generated by the new order. In addition, the “brutal repression” unleashed by the Cuban regime to “crush” the peaceful protests that took place in over 50 cities on the island in July, worsened matters.

In contrast to the deep economic crisis Cuba is experiencing, the region’s competitors in tourism “are rapidly rebounding.” In fact, Morales’ forecast points to the arrival this year of “barely 400,000 tourists,” only 10% of the 4 million projected for countries like the Dominican Republic for the same year. “It is the worst thing I have ever seen in my life as an economic strategy and pandemic control. It is total incompetence,” he said.

THE PANDEMIC, “GRAVEDIGGER” OF TOURISM

However, Cuba will begin a gradual reopening of the country and of international tourism on November 15, with the expected easing of restrictions imposed by Covid-19.

In Morales’ opinion, the opening scheduled for November is nothing more than a “desperate call to attract dollars,” since “reversing this situation in the short term” is an “impossible task.”

In this reopening context of the tourism sector, the Cuban government estimates that it will succeed in attracting some 100,000 visitors for the winter season, a “truly negligible” figure, in the consultant’s opinion, which barely reaches 10% of what the Cuban market used to attract before the pandemic. It is a “sharp decline” in the number of visitors to the island in the past three years, he insisted.

Tourism plunged 74.6% in 2020 compared to 2019, when just over 1 million visitors were recorded, nearly 3/4 less than in 2019, when the figure stood at 4,275,558.

Tourism dropping for three consecutive years is a very alarming figure, an indication that the government has no strategy whatsoever, that it is making mistakes and “there is a wrong and poor strategy and a lack of attention to tourism,” according to the expert.

“The pandemic has dug a grave for the tourism industry,” he added, saying: “I don’t believe that the tourism sector can recover before three or four years.”