- The official press claims there are surpluses in the agricultural sector due to the drop in travelers.
- Economist Pedro Monreal believes that the government doesn’t care about hotels, but rather about the real estate business of renting them out.
14ymedio, Madrid, 1 August 2025 — María, taking advantage of a break on her way to work, was the only customer sitting on the terrace of the Hotel Inglaterra this week. “Look, the musicians are there, playing for no one, like every time I come by,” she quipped, stirring with a spoon the cappuccino she paid the waiter 300 pesos for.
The scene, unthinkable years ago, when tourism was still one of the few things going well on the island, has become commonplace in the new Cuba, where authorities have stopped pretending it is the engine of the economy to recognize that the moment is the worst “since the collapse of the Twin Towers in 2001, not counting the pandemic period,” as the minister in charge, Juan Carlos García Granda, said before Parliament last month.
Two weeks later, Cubadebate analyzes—in its own way—the catastrophic tourism data of the last year in a special issue and outlines a strategy to rectify the situation, which, it believes, must involve greater investment. “The modernization of tourism infrastructure appears to be another unavoidable priority. The implementation of targeted rehabilitation programs in key facilities—starting with the Varadero and hubs in the Keys —could significantly improve competitiveness without requiring huge investments,” the on-line report states.
The infrastructure improvements could include those García Granda suggested for airports, but several paragraphs in the text indicate that hotel investments are also being considered. “While Cuba struggles to maintain its hotel infrastructure, other countries in the region have invested massively in modernizing their offerings,” Cubadebate notes.
Among the infrastructure improvements could be those that García Granda advanced for airports
The data, however, indicate that the Havana regime has done nothing but relentlessly increase hotel capacity, inconsistent with the number of international travelers arriving. This Friday, Cuban economist Pedro Monreal published a post summarizing some alarming indicators. For example, in the case of Ciego de Ávila, the number of accommodations quadrupled in just two years (2020-2022). In Holguín and Havana, hotel capacity also grew exponentially in 2024, by 26.3% and 28.4% respectively.
“The scale of tourist arrivals did not require expanding accommodation capacity during and after the pandemic. Increasing accommodation capacity in conditions of sustained low occupancy ruins the operational efficiency of tourism,” the expert argues. In his article, he analyzes other, more well-known data, such as the fact that a third of the country’s total investment was allocated to the tourist sector, where occupancy rates have not exceeded 30% in the last five years.
Monreal maintains that the regime’s obsession, more than with hotels, is with considering them an investment vehicle within a real estate business model that benefits the investing entities, which is, ultimately, the military corporation Gaesa, which leases its assets to international companies. This model, he asserts, also benefits “on a stable basis from ‘extra’ investment funds (via the state budget) and tax and customs advantages (derived from the International Economic Associations they establish)” and there is little room for optimism in this regard, as it is “shielded” by “political cronyism and corporate opacity.”
The Cubadebate article , which obviously doesn’t mention this vector, indicates that the lack of tourists is disastrous, both for the acquisition of foreign currency (approximately $2.3 billion directly and up to $8 billion if the indirect effect is included) and for other related sectors. Contradicting the ministers, who stated in Parliament that there are no travelers due to the food shortage, Cubadebate expresses something unusual.
“The agricultural sector, which allocates a significant volume of its production to supply the tourism industry, is now facing surpluses that have no alternative domestic market.”
“The agricultural sector, which allocates a significant volume of its production to supplying the tourism industry, is now facing surpluses that have no alternative domestic market,” it argues, also in stark contrast to the figures for agricultural production or the manufacturing industry, not to mention Cubans’ desire to see this unexpected surplus appear in their supermarkets. And as if the state had even more to spare, the outlet also notes that “the transportation sector, with a fleet of taxis and buses linked to tourism, is seeing its sustainability compromised.”
The text finds sui generis causes for the collapse of tourism on the island, which by June—with 1,680,304 visitors, 319,654 fewer than in 2024—has fallen by more than 20% compared to the previous year, a year that also was not very good. Among these causes, and leaving aside the impact of the “United States blockade,”* it mentions an alleged adverse international context which includes inflation, the (nonexistent) recession in Europe, and rising flight prices, which are harming tourism internationally.
Paradoxically, the World Tourism Organization has consistently reported improved figures annually since the end of the pandemic, and its forecasts for this year include growth of between 3% and 5%. Leading countries in the sector, such as Spain, revealed positive figures for the first quarter on August 1st. For example, the Canary Islands surpassed 80% hotel occupancy, while forecasts for August predict occupancy rates above 90% in regions such as Andalusia, the Balearic Islands, and Catalonia.
Meliá itself, a Balearic hotel group with major business in Cuba, can refute the alleged poor international context.
Meliá itself, a Balearic hotel group with significant business in Cuba, can refute the alleged poor international situation. Its first-semester figures show that the Island is precisely the dark spot in its finances. The company earned €991.1 million, 3.2% more than the same period last year, reduced its debt by more than €28 million, and increased its net profit by 72.4%, all thanks to the growth of all its destinations except Germany and Cuba.
The Island’s figures are grim and by far the worst of all the main locations: occupancy below 40% even with plunging prices—€80 on average, 10% less than the previous year—and a profit per room of €31.7 million. Despite this, in July the Hotel Bristol, formerly managed by Kempinski, reopened under Meliá management.
Given this situation and the loss of numerous visitors from both its main market – Canada – and its most promising – Russia, whose decline is attributed to sanctions stemming from the invasion of Ukraine, despite the fact that they have been in place for three years – the regime considers it positive that travelers from the United States are relatively stable, due to “the Cuban diaspora,” and that Mexico, Argentina, and Colombia are holding up, the latter a sign that there is “effectiveness in promotional campaigns specifically aimed at the South American public.”
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*Translator’s note: There is, in fact, no US ‘blockade’ on Cuba, but this continues to be the term the Cuban government prefers to apply to the ongoing US embargo. During the Cuban Missile Crisis the US ordered a Naval blockade (which it called a ‘quarantine’) on Cuba in 1962, between 22 October and 20 November of that year. The blockade was lifted when Russia agreed to remove its nuclear missiles from the Island. The embargo had been imposed earlier in February of the same year, and although modified from time to time, it is still in force.
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