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International Crisis Impacts on Cuba's Tourism
The current international crisis has weighed heavily against Cuba's tourism, the main support of the Caribbean nation's economy, a senior official said on Saturday.
Cuba's Tourism Minister Ibrahim Ferradaz said that under the current circumstances it is expected that no more than 1.9 million tourists would come to the island, less than the two-million tourists goal set for this year.
Last year, Cuba received 1,774,000 tourists, earning 1.952 billion U.S. dollars in terms of gross income. The U.S. tourists represented 3.5-4 percent of the tourists who visited the island, according to official figures.
This year there were plans for a tourist flow growth by 12.7 percent from 2000, yet forecasts indicate only a 5-7 percent growth.
Between January and July one million visitors came into the Caribbean island from eight main markets: Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Mexico, the United Kingdom and Argentina.
Ferradaz said after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States the number of tourists staying in Cuban hotels dropped five percent from the same month of last year.
Nonetheless he considered that in November "maybe we won't reach the same level as the same month in 2000, but the perspectives for December surely look better."
In Cuba, tourism employs nearly 100,000 people, of which 36.1 percent are women, according to official figures.
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