Crackdown as tourists flood Cuba

UBA earned more than $3 billion from tourism last year and expects to better that this year despite President Donald Trump’s tightening of restrictions on US travel to the Caribbean island, according to an official in Havana.

“In 2016, revenue reached more than $3 billion in all activity linked to tourism in the country,” Jose Alonso, the Tourism Ministry’s business director, told state-run media.

“We think that, given the growth the country is seeing at the moment, we will beat that figure this year,” Alonso said.

Tourism revenue totalled $2.6bn in 2015.

The number of foreign visitors to Cuba was up 22% in the first half of this year compared with the same period last year, according to Alonso, who said that put it on track to reach its target for a record 4.2 million visits this year.

Tourism has been one of the few bright spots recently in Cuba’s economy, as it struggles with a decline in exports and subsidised oil shipments from its key ally, Venezuela.

A surge in American visitors has helped boost the sector since the 2014 Us-cuban détente under the Obama administration and its

Ceasing of US travel restrictions, even though a long-time ban on tourism remained in effect. But Trump earlier this month ordered a renewed tightening of travel restrictions, saying he was cancelling former president Barack Obama’s “terrible and misguided deal” with Havana.

Many details of the policy change are still unknown. But independent travel to Cuba from the US, by solo travellers and families, will probably also be much more restricted. Flights cut

Alonso said he was confident “an important number of Americans” would still be able to visit the island. But a recent announcement by Southwest Airlines that it was reducing the number of its flights to Cuba cast a shadow over his upbeat comments.

“There is no clear path to sustainability serving these markets, particularly with the continuing prohibition in US law on tourism to Cuba for American citizens,” Southwest said in a statement.

Southwest joined other US airlines that have cut flights to Cuba over the past few months or pulled out of the market altogether. – Reuters