Cuba plans cautious tourism reopening

HAVANA (AFP) — Cuba is planning to welcome tourists with COVID-19 tests and limit their contact with locals as part of a raft of measures designed to get its vital tourism industry back up and running.

The government of President Miguel DiazCanel said it would gradually open up the economy in the next weeks, with a particular focus on recovering tourism dollars lost to the lockdown.

Foreign tourists, the lifeblood of Cuba’s economy, will be restricted to a well established string of coastal resorts to limit contact with the local population in a country, where Diaz-Canel insisted, the coronavirus pandemic was “under control.”

And tourism, which was a good economic driver, has been at zero for the last three months.

Havana and the rest of the country will be initially be reserved for local tourism.

The island, with a population of just over 11 million, registered its first cases of COVID-19 — three Italian tourists — in March. It reported only eight new infections on Thursday.

So far Cuba has reported 2,219 COVID-19 cases, with 84 deaths.

But the pandemic shutdown has throttled the economy, and the government is eyeing the early revival of tourism, worth $3.3 billion in 2018.

Masks obligatory

“Unlike other countries, Cuba already had a crisis by the time COVID-19 arrived,” said economist Omar Everleny Perez, citing economic collapse in Venezuela and strengthening US sanctions.

“And tourism, which was a good economic driver, has been at zero for the last three months,” he said.

The lockdown forced Havana to slash imports by 75 percent in the first quarter, according to official data

The result is that long lines of Cubans outside stores, hoping to stock up on food and toiletries, have increased amid worsening shortages. The Communist-run island’s emerging private sector, invested largely in the tourism and restaurant sector, has been severely affected by the pandemic.