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1,463,097 people arrived in Cuba between January and July 2024 International Travelersa decrease of 1.8% compared with the same period in 2023which not only confirms that the resistance Tourism The island’s population has recovered following the Covid-19 pandemic, but Vacationers The government does not expect this to be achieved by the end of the year.
according to Latest Report State National Statistics and Information Office (ONEI), In July this year, 153,261 foreign tourists arrived in Cubasimilar to 2022 but lower than 2023.
In this regard, according to data from state entities, The number of tourists from Canada and Europe fell.
Cubans living abroad (who the government includes in these reports despite the fact that they almost never stay in hotels, but stay with relatives) saw a 14.4% decrease in travel during this period. Between January and July 2023, 210,026 migrants visited the island, but in the same period of 2024, this number fell to 179,746.
Nevertheless, according to ONEI, The largest outbound market to Cuba remains Canada (622,128 tourists), followed by Russia (123,358 tourists).the United States (95,804), Germany (40,226), Mexico (37,086) and Spain (36,965).
With the exception of Russia, Mexico and Argentina, all other issuing markets saw year-on-year declines in the first seven months of 2024, a trend that has become increasingly evident since the beginning of the year and which some analysts have linked to Washington’s decision to cancel the ESTA fast-track visa option for Europeans who have travelled to Cuba.
These figures will be published later The number of foreign tourist arrivals in the first half of 2024 will only increase by 11,284 compared to the same period in 2023.
According to ONEI’s own data, As of the end of June last year, the island received a total of 1,309,836 international tourists.which means The year-on-year growth was only 0.9%.
With numbers like these, The island has received only 40% of the government’s target of 3.2 million tourists by the end of 2024. To achieve this goal, an average of 315,000 tourists would have to arrive per month in the second half of the year, a figure not even reached in any of the previous months of the high season (December to March). July had 153,261 visitors, less than half that number.
According to official data, Cuba will receive 2.4 million international tourists in 2023 and 1.6 million in 2022. These figures are a far cry from 2019 (4.2 million) and 2018 (46,000), the two years before the outbreak of Covid-19 and when local tourism business began to decline.
Nevertheless, by the end of 2023, the category “Business services, real estate and leasing activities” includes Construction of hotels and other tourism-related facilities, Absorbs most of the national budget.
Investments in this sector amounted to P23,744.8 million, accounting for 24.5% of the total investment for the yearor 96,622.0 million. The figure for this activity is slightly higher than the 23,369.6 million in 2022 and the 20,735.1 million in 2021, when the totals again far exceeded other economic sectors that are essential for the well-being of citizens, such as agriculture, food production. , health and housing construction.
The collapse of Cuban tourism contrasts with the appeal of neighboring destinations such as Punta Cana (Dominican Republic) and Cancun (Mexico), which are seeing record numbers of visitors.
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