Two Million Tourists Have Visited Cuba So Far This Year

Tourism to Cuba increased 8 percent over last year, despite new United States restrictions sharply cutting back on how many Americans visit the island, the state media reported.

More than two million tourists have visited Cuba so far this year, the largest number ever and up from last year’s 1.9 million foreigners, the tourism minister, Manuel Marrero, announced over the weekend.

Canadians topped the list of tourists, followed by Europeans, primarily from Italy, France, Germany and Spain. Few of those now visiting Cuba come from the United States.

By mid-September, visits to the island, primarily by Cuban-Americans, had dropped 25 percent since the United States adopted new travel restrictions on June 30 that cut the number of authorized family visits to Cuba from once a year to once every three years.