Visitors probably booked their flights months earlier, not knowing what awaited them on the island.
14ymedio, Havana, 27 October 2024 — Unaware of the multiple disasters that Cuba is currently experiencing – these include long power outages and a fuel shortage that is impacting even private transportation – some 285 tourists from Prague landed in Holguín on Saturday as part of an organized tour sponsored by by Der Touristik, Europe’s second largest tour operator.
“We are hoping the new season will be comparable to the previous one though, with these flights from Prague and Slovakia, all indications are that the number of visitors will be higher,” Carlos Álvarez Infante, commercial agent at the Ministry of Tourism in Holguín, told the newspaper ¡Ahora!. The province is still in the recovery phase, with the town of Moa being particularly hard hit after Hurricane Oscar passed through eastern Cuba last week. Local residents are still unable to return home and electrical service has still not been fully restored.
The province is still in the recovery phase, with the town of Moa being particularly hard hit after Hurricane Oscar passed through eastern Cuba”
The tourists arriving from Prague, who probably booked their flights months earlier not knowing what awaited them on the island, paid for a package that included a one or two-week stay at hotels in Playa Pesquero, Esmeralda or Ramón de Antilla in Holguín, Álvarez explained. Some of them will spend that time in the province before moving on to Santiago de Cuba.
Train and bus travel has been disrupted between Holguín and Santiago de Cuba, Bayamo, Manzanillo, Guantanamo and Havana due to a fuel shortage.
The Holguin airport is also seeing more tourists from Germany, Italy, Canada and the United States thanks to new routes from those countries. In fact, Alvarez said that next week airlines such as Air Canada will be adding more frequent flights for a total of 60 to 63 flights a week to the province.
The island’s ongoing energy crisis has caused many tourists to lose the interest in visiting the country’s beaches due to the difficulty of getting around, buying food outside of hotels and even connecting to wifi. Their disappointment comes despite warnings from some travel agents such as Manon Girardin, deputy director of Canada’s Voyages CAA-Québec.
The ongoing energy crisis has caused many tourists to lose the interest in visiting the island
“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 is 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,” said Girardin.
It is, if fact, Canadian tourists who have begun to express their dissatisfaction with the Cuban vacation experience. In August, 1.5% fewer tourists from that country visited Cuba than in the same month last year.
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