Tourism was once an ‘economic locomotive’ in Cuba. Now, the train is coming
For decades, Cuba’s tourism sector has enjoyed a reputation as an “economic locomotive” — a term used by authorities who saw it as the lifeblood of the Caribbean island country’s economy.
But the industry has been in decline since its 2018 peak, and the U.S. government’s squeeze on Cuba’s oil supply has pushed the nation’s most crucial industry closer to its breaking point.
The Trump administration has threatened to impose tariffs on countries that supply fuel to Cuba — part of an effort to strangle the communist-run country after the fall of its close ally and main energy supplier, Venezuela, in January. As a result, Canadian, Russian and European airlines have suspended flights and resorts have shuttered, staunching the flow of international visitors.
Without them, Cuba might not be able to survive. In 2024, the country had 2.2 million visitors, down more than 50 per cent from the 4.7 million tourists it welcomed in 2018.
Some experts say Cuba now faces its worst economic crisis since the aftermath of the 1962 Missile Crisis, and the collapse of its tourism industry could be the economy’s death knell.
“It will be a major blow to the Cuban economy if the tourism industry dries up,” said John Kirk, a professor emeritus of Latin American studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax, in an interview with CBC News.
U.S. President Donald Trump is applying severe economic pressure to an already-strained Cuba mired in a food and power crisis. Andrew Chang explains why the U.S. is choosing now to cut off the country’s oil supply, and why, for Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, it’s also personal.
How tourism reshaped the Cuban economy
Before the 1959 Cuban Revolution, Cuba’s tourism industry was largely privatized, much of it owned and exploited by the American mafia as a gangster’s paradise. Once the Castro-led revolution overthrew the Batista regime, the sector was put on a backburner, according to Kirk.
“No one wanted to deal with it because it smelled of the mafia and it smelled of fat cat Americans and the corruption and casinos,” he said.
When the Soviet Union imploded in the 1980s, “the Cuban government decided that sun and salsa made sense and as a result tourism should be dusted off,” he explained.
Cuba welcomed visitors from many countries, namely Canada, as well as Russia, Spain and Germany.
By the 2000s, Castro’s regime moved to centralize parts of the Cuban economy, a restructuring that included putting its tourism industry under the mandate of GAESA, a military-run conglomerate that generates more than a third of Cuba’s GDP.
“Most of those investments are real estate investments more than tourism investments, meaning the Cuban military has taken possession of prime locations in the best tourism areas of Cuba,” said Paolo Spadoni, an associate professor at Augusta University in Augusta,…
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