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According to official data released Friday, Cuba received 1,396,921 travelers in the first eight months of 2022, more than double the 573,944 who visited the island in the whole of the previous year.
That number of visitors is five times more than the same period of the previous fiscal year, when 251,178 international travelers visited the island, according to the report by the National Bureau of Statistics and Information (Onei).
Of the total number of international visitors, 971,456 came from Canada (298,410), traditionally the island's largest source of tourists. They were joined by tourists from the United States (60,885), Spain (55,102) and Russia (38,488).
Likewise, the total number of travelers includes 212,485 Cuban emigrants who visited the country during that period.
Cuban tourism authorities have set the goal of receiving 2.5 million tourists by 2022 after the break caused by the pandemic. Previously, in 2018 and 2019, Cuba welcomed between 4 and 5 million international travelers per year.
Official estimates foresee income to the Cuban economy of some 1.159 billion dollars if, up to December, it welcomes that amount of visitors.
Tourism represents the second largest item of the gross domestic product (GDP) and the second largest source of foreign currency in Cuba, behind the export of professional services, mainly in the health sector.
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