MIAMI, United States. – Alejandro Gil, Minister of Economy and Planning of Cuba, admitted Friday that the island’s government will not meet its goal of welcoming 2.5 million international visitors in 2022, as was projected.
Gil stated that “it is estimated that the year will conclude with 1,700,000 tourists, a number lower than the 2.5 million” projected in the Plan for the Economy, which represents a drop of 32% of the projected numbers.
Gil, who is also Deputy Prime Minister, stated that “in the course of 2022, 1,074,795 visitors have arrived in the island to date.”
According to the most recent report of the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI, by its Spanish acronym), the island welcomes 1,369,921 travelers in the first eight months of 2022, more than double the number of visitors to the country the entire year 2021. Regardless, the numbers remain very far from the 3.5 million visitors welcomed in 2019.
Of the total number of travelers, 971,456 were international visitors, 807,732 more (593%) than for January through August in 2021.
A country by country analysis indicates that 298,410 visitors arrived in Cuba from Canada; 60,885 from the United States; 55,102 from Spain, and 38,488 from the Russian Federation.
Another 212,485 is made up of Cuban immigrants who reside abroad.
In mid-year, Juan Carlos García Granda, Minister of Tourism, mentioned the sustainable increase of tourist facilities in the island and said that the rise in the number of tourists has been greater than the increase in the number of guest rooms built since the 1990s.
During a session of the National Assembly of the People’s Power (ANPP, by its Spanish acronym) reported on by the official news medium Cubadebate, García Granda insisted upon the regime’s plans to reach 2.5 million visitors in 2022.
In spite of the serious crisis that the island is facing, the regime continues to opt for elevating the levels of the tourism industry. Recently, it was learnt that Cubasol, the entrepreneurial group of the Ministry of Tourism (MINTUR, by its Spanish acronym), was projecting new investments for strengthening the non-hotel infrastructure in the island until 2030, including the development of golf courses.
Also, the Cuban regime has not halted the construction of new hotels or the expansion of existing ones. During the months of world economic crisis caused by the pandemic and of domestic shortages caused by the mismanagement of the Cuban economy on the part of the Communist Party, construction work of new hotels has not stopped, as indicated in a report published by CubaNet in early June of this year.
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