{"id":18740,"date":"2024-12-09T11:57:38","date_gmt":"2024-12-09T11:57:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/hit-by-blackouts-cubas-tourism-industry-now-braces-for-trump\/"},"modified":"2024-12-09T11:57:39","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T11:57:39","slug":"hit-by-blackouts-cubas-tourism-industry-now-braces-for-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/hit-by-blackouts-cubas-tourism-industry-now-braces-for-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"Hit by blackouts Cuba\u2019s tourism industry now braces for Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Canadian tourists, such as these taking part in an exercise class, are vital to the Cuban tourism sector<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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With winter nights drawing in across North America, Canadian \u201csnowbirds\u201d \u2013 citizens who flee their freezing temperatures for sunnier climes every year \u2013 are planning their annual trips to Florida or the Caribbean.<\/p>\n

Traditionally, Cuba has been hugely popular among Canadians, drawn to the pristine white sands of beach resorts like Varadero.<\/p>\n

They fill the void left by Americans wary of the travel restrictions imposed on them under the continuing US economic embargo<\/a> of the largest island in the Caribbean.<\/p>\n

Figures show that almost one million<\/a> Canadian tourists visited Cuba last year, the top country of origin for visitors by some margin.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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As such, a recent decision by the Canadian tour operator, Sunwings Vacations Group \u2013 one of Cuba\u2019s leading travel partners \u2013 to remove 26 hotels from its Cuba portfolio is a blow to the island\u2019s struggling tourism industry.<\/p>\n

Sunwings took the decision after Cuba endured a four-day nationwide blackout at the end of October, caused by failures with the country’s aging energy infrastructure.<\/a><\/p>\n

This was followed by another national power cut last month, when Hurricane Rafael barrelled its way across the island, worsening an already-acute electricity crisis.<\/p>\n

A third countrywide blackout then happened on Wednesday, 4 Dec, after Cuba’s largest power plant broke down.<\/p>\n

\u201cCuba has had some volatility in the last few weeks and that may shake consumer confidence,\u201d Sunwings\u2019 chief marketing officer, Samantha Taylor told the<\/a> Pax News travel website last month.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are incredible places to go in Cuba,\u201d she stressed, keen to emphasise that the company isn\u2019t pulling out of Cuba altogether. \u201cBut we also recognise that if clients are a little uncomfortable, we need to give them options.\u201d<\/p>\n

Specifically, that involved drawing up a list of what they called \u201chidden gems\u201d \u2013 alternative holiday destinations in the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas and Colombia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Cuba has been hit hard by storms and rain during this year’s hurricane season<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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The implications for Cuba are clear.<\/p>\n

With tourism now the island\u2019s principal economic motor, and the main source of foreign currency earnings after remittances, that an important tour operator is pointing its customers towards other countries\u2019 beaches over crumbling energy infrastructure is a real concern.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur message to Canadians is that tourism is one of the economy\u2019s priorities,\u201d said Lessner G\u00f3mez, director of the Cuban Tourism Board in Toronto in a statement. \u201cThe Ministry of Tourism has been preparing for the winter season to deliver better services, uninterrupted supplies, a better airport experience, and more and new car rentals.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Cuba\u2019s tourism agency tries to ease fears about the extent of the electricity blackouts, few can deny that these have been extremely difficult months on the island. Hurricane Rafael was only the latest storm to hit Cuba in a frenetic Atlantic hurricane season in which more powerful and more frequent storms are the new normal.<\/p>\n

Of course, severe weather is a problem across the Caribbean. But for Cuba, there are other complications in play.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Donald Trump\u2019s re-election to the White House and his choice for Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, stand to make life even more complicated for Cubans than it already is.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is probably the Cuban Revolution\u2019s hardest moment,\u201d says former Cuban diplomat, Jes\u00fas Arboleya. \u201cAnd unfortunately, I see nothing on the horizon whatsoever which allows for an optimistic view of the future of US-Cuba relations.<\/p>\n

\u201cDonald Trump has handed US policy towards Cuba to those sectors of the Cuban American right who have essentially lived off anti-Castro policies since their origins.\u201d <\/p>\n

Mr Arboleya adds that Marco Rubio, currently a US Senator for Florida, is the leading voice among them. He is a Cuban American long opposed to the communist government in Havana. <\/p>\n

His parents were Cubans who moved to the US in 1956, three years before Fidel Castro seized power, but his grandfather fled the Castro-led turn to communism on the island.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are horrified by the idea of another Donald Trump presidency. It spells real trouble,\u201d echoes Cuban political commentator and editor of Temas magazine, Rafael Hern\u00e1ndez.<\/p>\n

Current US policy towards Cuba is \u201csomewhat schizophrenic\u201d, he argues.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the one hand, the State Department facilitates support to the private sector, and [pushes for] economic changes in Cuba. But on the other hand, Congress and Senate seem to freeze any advances on those reforms.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Jes\u00fasJes\u00fas Arboleya<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Former diplomat Jes\u00fas Arboleya says the Cuban Revolution is now facing its “hardest moment”<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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The expectation is, however, that a future Secretary of State Rubio will coalesce the US\u2019s Cuba policy around a single idea – maximum pressure on the island by tightening the already-harsh sanctions.<\/p>\n

Cubans fear that could mean the suspension of commercial flights to Cuba, or even the closure of the US Embassy in Havana, which was officially reopened in 2015 after decades of frosty relations.<\/p>\n

If implemented, such steps would be deliberately designed to further harm Cuba\u2019s floundering tourism trade, the aim to hit the communist-run nation when it\u2019s down. Tourist numbers to Cuba have almost halved since the high point of nearly five million visitors during the Obama-era d\u00e9tente with Cuba.<\/p>\n

Between 2015-2017 US visitors flocked to the island under more relaxed travel restrictions, keen to experience a country that had long been denied them. Around the same time, the Cuban government embarked on a major hotel-building spree, confident that demand would remain strong over the next decade.<\/p>\n

However, there followed a double blow to Cuban tourism from which it hasn\u2019t fully recovered. First, the Trump Administration rolled back President Obama\u2019s engagement policies, and then the Covid-19 pandemic sent the industry into freefall.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Marco Rubio, Trump’s choice for Secretary of State, is a harsh critic of the Cuban regime<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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With many of those hotels now registering much lower occupancy rates than originally predicted, and real difficulties in providing the five-star customer experience as advertised amid the blackouts and shortages, some question the strategy of putting so many eggs in the tourism basket in the first place.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy has Cuba invested 38% [of government funds] on average over the past decade in hotels and infrastructure connected to international tourism, but only 8 to 9% on energy infrastructure?\u201d asks economist Ricardo Torres at the American University in Washington DC. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t make sense. The hotels run on electricity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even with all the current challenges, most visitors agree that Cuba remains a unique travel experience. The cliches \u2013 classic cars, cigars and mojitos \u2013 still appeal to many, while others prefer to travel the island absorbing its history, culture and music.<\/p>\n

Yet as tour operator Sunwings\u2019 decision to step back shows, some tourists are finding it hard to appreciate Cuba during its energy crisis, especially if it\u2019s about to be exacerbated by a hostile administration \u2013 and Secretary of State \u2013 in Washington.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Getty Images Canadian tourists, such as these taking part in an exercise class, are vital to the Cuban tourism sector With winter nights drawing in across North America, Canadian \u201csnowbirds\u201d \u2013 citizens who flee their freezing temperatures for sunnier climes every year \u2013 are planning their annual trips to Florida or the Caribbean. Traditionally, Cuba […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latin-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18740"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18742,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18740\/revisions\/18742"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}