14ymedio, Madrid, 23 October 2024 — “Affordable prices, magnificent beaches, a popular destination and ignorance. These are the reasons why Canadians to continue going to Cuba,” says Manon Girardin, deputy director of the Canadian travel agency Voyages CAA-Québec. Her company is among those which aren’t buying into the message of a safe, idyllic tourist destination that the Cuban regime and its publicists are trying to sell.
“The risk that customers will be disappointed is high, especially for those who ignore — or choose to ignore — the problems the country is facing. That’s why we have a few caveats when we are talking about travel to this destination. If you want to go, you have to know what you’re in for so you can accept whatever comes and not be disappointed,” she says in an article published in the travel section of Le Nouvelliste, a Quebec newspaper. The article asks the question, “Who still wants to travel to Cuba?”
With September’s tourism figures soon to be released, it is no secret that the number of Canadian visitors to Cuba fell in August to 665,871, 1.5% less than the same month last year. Canada continues to be Cuba’s main source of overseas tourists but all indications are that growth here has long since peaked. Russia, Mexico and Argentina are now the countries that look the most promising.
“The risk that customers will be disappointed is high, especially for those who ignore — or choose to ignore — the problems the country is facing”
By the first of September, 1,608,078 tourists had arrived on the island, 58,290 fewer than the same period in 2023. The news could not have been worse, especially for a regime that has invested all it had in this sector. Figures for September and October, which are traditionally slow months, promise to be even worse. The nationwide blackout on October 18 and the effects of Hurricane Oscar, which struck a few days later, have raised fears that November and December, usually Cuba’s busiest tourist season, will be disastrous.
“Generally, the price is much cheaper than in other nearby destinations. A colleague is going to the Dominican Republic and the cost of her all-inclusive package is now more than $3,000 (about $2,166 USD) for one week in February. Cuba would never be that expensive,” says Girardin, who warns potential travelers that you get what you pay for and recalls one of her agency’s recent trips to Cayo Largo.
“Passengers couldn’t shower for several days because the hotel didn’t have water,” she says. In that instance, the Canadian company Sunwing took steps to prevent shortages by stocking local food and drinks onboard to meet passengers’ needs. This was the only way the group was able to have things like imported alcoholic beverages, though not everyone was so lucky.
On Tuesday, the Canadian government updated its travel advisory for Cuba. Like most national governments, Ottawa issues recommendations and warnings that would-be visitors to other countries can consult to find what kinds of precautions they should take and whether or not to avoid all travel to a particularly dangerous destination at all. Except for periods marked by specific weather events, Cuba had been on the Canadian government’s green threat level until October 2023, after which it moved to the yellow level, where it has remained ever since. The reason: the shortage of some basic goods including food, medicine and gasoline.
Yesterday, Canada raised it warning level for Guantánamo y Holguín provinces to orange, recommending that people avoid non-essential travel there due to the aftermath of Hurricane Oscar
Fortunately, some regions of the country remain in the green zone, meaning visitors need only take normal precautions when traveling there. These include Havana, Jardínes del Rey, the resort towns of Varadero, Cayo Largo, Jibacoa, Marea del Portillo, Playa Ancón and Playa Santa Lucia. Yesterday, however, Canada raised it warning level for Guantánamo and Holguín provinces to orange, recommending that people avoid non-essential travel there due to the aftermath of Hurricane Oscar.
This is not the only blow to one of the country’s key economic sectors, which is now in its high season. In an interview with LCN on Tuesday, François Laramée, a Quebec travel agent who was in Varadero during the blackout, could not have been more blunt. “It was time to leave because it was pathetic,” he said in Quebec, where he arrived on Tuesday after an overnight flight.
Laramée, who until now thought of Cuba as “a second home,” said that, when he got to his hotel, there was no electricity. “Even staying at a five-star hotel was a disaster.”
After his own personal experience, Laramée encouraged the forty people who called his agency on Tuesday morning to ask about travel to Cuba not to go for the time being. “I told them they should wait till next month while things are recovering,” he said. “Even the local staff, who are often friendly and affectionate, are exhausted. Really, it was no fun at all.
“Even the staff, who are usually friendly and caring, were exhausted. It really wasn’t fun at all”
Laramée recommends that Canadians eager for a beach vacation opt for Mexico or the Dominican Republic instead.
There was an incident this year that caught the attention of the world’s press and may have contributed more to the drop in Canadian tourism to Cuba than Ottawa’s warnings. Faraj Allah Jarjour, a visitor from Montreal who died in Varadero last March, was buried in a town north of Moscow after being mistaken for Ilya Neroev, a Russian visitor who also died on the island. The men’s bodies were accidentally switched by the Cuban officials, a mistake that came to light only after Jarjour’s family realized they had been sent the wrong body.
For Caroline Tétrault and her husband Christian Maurais, a couple from Quebec, their Cuban vacation turned into a nightmare after Tétrault’s appendix burst and she developed a case of peritonitis. In an interview with Radio Canada, Maurais described the perilous conditions of the hospital in Villa Clara where his wife was treated. While praising the professionalism of the medical staff, the experience changed their minds about returning to the island. “Unfortunately, we are done with Cuba. I am sure the world is full of other very beautiful places to see,” said Maurais.
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