Tourism in Cuba: the jewel of the Caribbean

 

Cuba, because of its 1,000-kilometer coastline, attractive underwater landscapes, and diversity of animal and plant life, is considered among the top destinations for Caribbean Sea travelers. As the American media outlet National Geographic announced on January 11 of this year, Cuba was recognized as the top cultural tourism destination in Latin America. This was while Cuba, after the spread of the coronavirus in the world, completely closed its borders and for this reason suffered a severe economic blow. According to a Statista report on tourism's share of Cuba's economy between 2019 and 2021, this country in 2019 had twelve billion dollars of revenue from this industry. With the spread of COVID-19 in 2020 this revenue was halved and brought only six and a half billion into the government treasury, but in 2021 this figure reached about eight billion dollars. This growth continued in 2023, and compared with 2022 the arrival of tourists in Cuba was thirty-four percent higher. It is as if this country intends, by increasing tourism's share of its economy, to overcome financial crises and US sanctions.

Cuba's tourism in 2023

 

In 2023 Cuba saw 2.4 million tourists. Seventy percent of these tourists were Canadians, Cubans living abroad, Russians, Americans, and Spaniards. In late January 2024 Cuba's ambassador in Moscow gave an interview to Russia's Interfax news agency and said: "About 185 thousand tourists from Russia traveled in 2023 to Cuba's dazzling white-sand beaches, and we hope this number will increase to 250 thousand people this year." This promise by the ambassador points to a thirty-five percent jump in Russian tourists for 2024. In the view of this statistical database, Cuba's travel and tourism market, because of its unique culture, lively music scene, and astonishing natural landscapes, has the ability to make such a forecast a reality. For this reason, too, the country's government officials have arranged cultural planning for group travel so that they both introduce themselves and escape the economic crisis.

Cuba's cultural programs for foreign tourists

According to the analytical site Latina Republic, Cuba intends to raise the number of its foreign tourists for 2024 to three million two hundred people. A country that is considered a multiple destination for ecotourism, sun-and-beach tourism, cultural matters, historical heritage, adventure in nature, health tourism, and diverse international events. For this reason, in 2023 it earned honors at the global level, one of the most important of which was the gold award of the specialized British tourism magazine Wanderlust to Cuba, which obtained the title of the world's most popular island. Or in another example, the two coastal cities of Cayo Santa Maria and Playa Pilar in Cayo Guillermo obtained, respectively, ninth and twelfth ranks among the world's beautiful beaches.

Even so, with this ecotourism in Cuba, politicians did not rest on it alone and sought to attract more tourists to the country by displaying their cultural heritage in the form of conferences or MIC. MIC is the abbreviation of Meetings, incentives, conferences, Exhibitions, which refers to large tourism groups. In fact it must be said that MIC is an important part of the tourism industry and its aim is purposeful, planned visits to various events such as music festivals, theater, and tourism conferences. In Cuba such formats exist, and it was even because of holding conferences such as the thirty-ninth congress of the Federation of Latin American Congress Organizing Bodies in 2023 that this country was able to obtain the award for best MICE organizer for the fourth consecutive year. So MIC tourism is of such importance for Cubans that, according to an announcement by the Cubasi site, this year they want to hold 44 more events than last year. An example of it is also the FITCuba2024 international tourism festival, which is held on the first through the fifth of May. Or in another example we can point to music and theater events, for which Cuban cultural officials have made extensive preparations and which previously were also given importance by National Geographic magazine for the music section. For this subject, the Ministry of Culture has planned a festival named Jazz Plaza that is to be held in the two cities of Santiago and Havana with the presence of prominent Cuban musicians, 66 international groups, and more than 150 artists.

Summing up

 

The Cuban government intends in 2024 to increase the foreign-exchange share of tourism in the economy to a large extent. This planning is while the statistic of foreign travelers' arrivals in Cuba in 2023 had a one-million difference from the number forecast in the budget. For this reason, officials expected that of the seventy percent from five traveler population groups to Cuba, at least the number of Russian travelers in 2024 would increase to 250 thousand people and they would have thirty-five percent tourism growth from this group alone. So they tried, in addition to the ecotourism sector, to strengthen the capacity of MIC tourism events such as music festivals and conferences, both to attract more tourists and to display their cultural heritage better.