Cuba’s tourism marches on the right track

Cuba is in a position right now to reach its estimated goal of 1.9 million visitors by the end of the year, a figure that will account for a mighty 12.7 percent increase compared to the previous twelve-month period.

Those numbers –experts anticipate- will add a fifth of a million more travelers in 2004 for a foreseeable double-digits growth.

Leaving behind a time of travel drought, the rebounding local leisure industry has also scored a 16 percent hike in terms of revenues and earnings, and chances for that percentage to remain on the rise are looking good.

The arrival of Canadian sunbathers has been paramount for the island nation’s comeback. The North American country amasses a fifth of all tourists coming to Cuba. But the Cuban industry also fared well as far as European trippers are concerned, especially Frenchmen, Italians and Britons. The Old World chips in 55 percent of the total amount of trekkers.

In 2003, the government’s strategy has once again held water. The country is embarked on a task to attain higher tourist-per-day earnings and cut costs at one fell swoop, as it seeks to provide better and more efficient quality services.

Efforts to try its hand at other markets, branch out into new tourist circuits, lure more foreign tour operators and tap into new market segments are also paying off. More visitors are now willing to come to the island nation and 70 percent of the total comes looking for sun-and-beach choices.

Cuba’s tourist sector has sported the most dynamic development in the entire Western Hemisphere. The island has come in for 15 million tourists over the past 13 years.

A decade ago, Cuba was riding the caboose of travel destinations in the Americas with a modest 23rd spot overall. Right now, the island of the Greater Antilles has cracked the top-10 ranking and holds the number nine spot, netting a tenth of all visitors who come looking for the balmy Caribbean. It’s the destination of choice for Spaniards, Italians and Canadians, and the second-best vacation getaway among Germans.

As we speak, Cuba has a stock of 41,600 hotel rooms and a dozen joint ventures operating 4,700 accommodations, a figure expected to jump to 7,600 rooms by the year 2006.

In the same breath, sixteen international companies run and market over 50 resorts tallying 18,000 operational rooms.

Featuring a great competitive edge on its neighboring territorial keys, Cuba offers travelers such scarce commodities in today’s world as safety and security, coupled with peerless hospitality, a breathtaking scenery, flora and wildlife, as well as good cultural options, superb colonial architecture, excellent hotel and extra-hotel facilities and eleven international airports that receive airliners from as many as seventy foreign carriers.

However, the 40-year-plus U.S. trade embargo against Cuba continues to portray the island nation as a forbidden fruit for American citizens who are forced to get around a travel ban that blatantly violates their constitutional right to move freely everywhere around the globe.

Would travel restrictions be lifted tomorrow, Americans coming to Cuba could shell out as many as $576 million in the first year alone.

As a key player for the Cuban economy, tourism has proved to be a showcase for the island nation’s steady headway in the combination of social, economic and environmental objectives, three top priorities in today’s Cuba.