Varadero raked in over $100 million in just two months

Varadero Beach, one of Cuba’s premiere tourist circuits, made it big in the first two months of the ongoing year with a walloping $107.6 million worth of revenues, the largest lump sum of its history, an official sources said.

This figure stands for a 5 percent increase compared to the same period of time the year before, Lester Oliva, a delegate from the Ministry of Tourism to that coveted destination, told weekly newspaper Options.

As we speak, Mr. Oliva pointed out, the so-called high-peak tourist season is faring very much in keeping with the projected estimates of higher stay-per-day averages and occupancy rates in the neighborhood of 70 percent of all available rooms.

By the end of February, the beach area amassed more than $42 million in earnings. The same source indicated the month of March is doing well with growth numbers in double digits as stacked up against last year’s figures.

Varadero Beach –some 88 miles from Havana- is outfitted with over 14,000 rooms in 48 hotels. Tourism authorities on the island nation believe there’ll be 1,600 more accommodations in 2004.

Official stats have it that Varadero’s hotels and resorts have welcomed more than 140,000 tourists between January and February this year for a daily average of 19,800 visitors, 20 percent more than the year before.

Canada continues leading the pack as the number-one sending market of the island nation with 60 percent of the total, followed by Germany, France, Spain, Mexico and the United Kingdom.

The leisure industry, by far the most dynamic sector of the Cuban economy, chipped in $2 billion in revenues for the island nation’s coffers in 2002.

In all, 1,686,716 tourists traveled to Cuba last year. That figure is expected to remain only 100,000 vacationers shy of 2 million in 2003.