Cuba: Tourism slowly starting in Havana and other cities

Cuba is slowly starting Havana and other cities to tourism after preparing the beach resorts in November. People are excited to breathe life into the destructed industry shuttered last March by the pandemic.

Francisco Duran, head of epidemiology in the Ministry of Public Health, said that around 1,000 companies were entering the country daily, the majority bound for resorts where COVID-19 orders have proved quite effective but a trickle headed to the Cuban capital, some after visiting the beach.

Like other Caribbean countries, Cuba depends heavily on tourism, which represented almost about a 10th of its total domestic product in 2019. Its economy experienced an 11% decline last year.

Now some Europeans and Latin Americans have appeared, although only a few hotels are also open and most beds and breakfasts places remain empty.

“Little by little, there is some movement, and that’s a start,” he said of the capital, which just a year ago was running with tourists walking the streets, riding in vintage U.S. cars, and being brought back and forth in Chinese-built buses.

Cuba’s daily infection rate per capita continues very low by regional standards, but it has almost increased over the past month, largely due to Cubans residing abroad visiting family and breaking quarantine, as per the government.

Flights from the United States and a few other countries Cuban-Americans arrive from were drastically decreased as of the first of the year. There have been only 148 deaths from the virus.

Cuba's economy is expected to improve as tourists have started to appear to enjoy their winter vacations. The locals are happy to have tourism getting back to life after a massive shutdown that remained for over a year and decreased the overall income of the country