Cuba Looks to More Diversified Incoming Tourism

With growth figures hovering around 5 percent in terms of tourist arrivals so far this year, Cuba is hopeful the year 2014 will render a more diversified number of travelers in a number of different segments, the island nation’s tourism minister Manuel Marrero said in Havana.

During a master lecture that opened this year’s edition of the International Tourism Fair (FITCuba 2014), Mr. Marrero told the press the country is currently executing the building of over 10,000 guestrooms, many of them linked to golf course developments.

According to Mr. Marrero, the passage of the new Foreign Investment Act will certainly allow for further branching-out of travel and tourism projects on the Caribbean island. One of the legislation’s greatest allures is no doubt the tax exemption policy for up to eight year for new investments and developments in the travel sector.

In the same breath, Cuba has been opening up to the private sector with a huge contribution to tourism, especially in the form of mom-and-pop bistros, family restaurants and more than 7,500 rooms in private hostels and guesthouses across the country.

One of the highlights of the new approach to foreign investment in the country is the development launched by the France-based Accor Hotels Group, a move that includes the construction of a hotel in Trinidad, a city of Central Cuba, and the Pullman Cayo Coco in the like-name key.

Mr. Marrero said that Canada continues to be Cuba’s top outbound market with over a million sunbathers every year, followed by the UK, Germany and France. A second group of markets includes Italy, Argentina, Mexico, Spain, Russia and Venezuela.

As to the selection of France as the guest country in this year’s FITCuba, Mr. Marrero said Cuba and that European nation has longstanding ties in terms of culture and history. As many as 93,000 French tourists visited Cuba last year.