Cuba: Tourism 95% Lower in Early 2021 Than Same Period of 2020

"During the first two months of 2021, some 35,600 international travelers arrived on the island, representing 4.5% of the 792,507 foreign visitors totaled at the end of February 2020," the specialist reported.

Perelló commented that the revival of tourism in Cuba would depend on the control of the pandemic at the domestic level and the success of the vaccination processes in Canada, Spain, Germany, England, and France, the main markets that send tourists to the country.

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He pointed out that the recovery of the aviation sector and travelers' income is fundamental for the return to normality of international tourism after "the hard blow" caused by the health emergency.

"People could be immunized and not have the income to travel," he noted.

"In the midst of the pandemic, the arrival of tourists to #Cuba decreased by 95.5 percent during the months of January and February compared to the same period last year, academic and university professor José Luis Perelló said Monday."

The Ministry of Tourism reported in early 2021 that just over one million international travelers arrived in Cuba last year, well below the 4.5 million expected before the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak.

Cuba surpassed the one million tourist figure in 1996. It reached a record 4.7 million visitors at the close of 2017, even with the strengthened U.S. blockade during the Trump Administration's first year.

Before detecting the first cases of COVID-19 in the country, the tourism industry accounted for more than 10% of the Cuban gross domestic product.