DEVELOPMENT-CUBA: Tourism the Industry of Next Century

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Jan 5 1998 (IPS) - Tourism could permanently displace sugar as Cuba’s primary source of income if government officials are correct in their estimates that 10 million people will come here in the first decade of the next century.

“Some 10 million foreign tourists will visit Cuba by the year 2010 – even if the sector’s growth rate is not as fast as it is currently,” Minister of Tourism Osmany Cienfuegos told parliament.

The new goal surprised many Cubans, who previously were told that the official goal was to lure two million visitors to the island by the beginning of the next century. If social stability is maintained, if there are no major natural disasters, and if the authorities maintain their development plan in the tourism sector, it is likely that tourism will consolidate its position in the Cuban economy, according to officials.

Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean and, in the last several years, has become a top tourist attraction in a world in which the number of international travelers is increasing.

In addition to the region’s well-known natural attractions, tourists visiting Cuba may explore two cities that have been declared “Patrimony of Humanity” by UNESCO: the historical center of the Cuban capital, Havana, and Trinidad, 454 kilometers from Havana.

The authorities also hope to link tourism with the strong artistic and intellectual activity evident in most of the country’s provinces, which remains unequaled by Cuba’s neighbors.

Cuba, a member of the Association of Caribbean States, is promoting a multi-destination tourism policy which experts say will require the participation of those Caribbean states that are today’s leaders in the region’s tourist industry.

Last month, Cuban President Fidel Castro warned that the goal of attracting ten million visitors is “high and difficult” to achieve given the economic blockade imposed by the United States on the island for nearly four decades.

Castro said that the principal potential market for Cuban tourism is very close by, in this neighboring country, whose government has prohibited its inhabitants from traveling to Cuba. But this policy of economic war against Cuba will not be in place forever, and if it is suspended before 2010, the goal of attracting ten million tourists to Cuba can be easily achieved, said the President.

According to a poll made public in Havana, 64 percent of U.S. residents would visit Cuba if Washington lifted travel restrictions to the island.

In addition to citizens who were born in the United States, more than one and a half million Cubans live in the United States, a community that also constitutes an important source of potential visitors to the island.

This past December, 15,000 Cubans who are U.S. residents traveled to Cuba, despite the existence of laws prohibiting direct flights between Cuba and the United States, and that restrict travel and sending money to the island.

“Tourism is becoming consolidated as the industry of the future. It will promote the country’s development not only because of the income generated but because it will also promote investment and create employment in other sectors of the economy,” said Cuba’s vice-president, Carlos Lage.

Cuba has experienced the highest growth rate in the number of international visitors in all of Latin America, passing from 24th place in 1985 to 12th place in 1996, according to an AEC report.

“Cuba’s upturn in this period was 34.6 percent, higher than that of Jamaica, which experienced the second-highest increase in number of visitors, at 14 percent,” says the report.

Cuba was also the Latin American country that progressed the most in terms of economic income during this period, climbing from 24th to ninth place, with 1.350 million dollars in 1996, according to the AEC report.

In order to reach the government’s objectives of attracting ten million tourists in 2010, the annual growth rate between 2001 and 2010 must be 17 percent, according to authorities in the tourism sector. But independent experts estimate that in order to attract ten million visitors after the year 2000, the growth rate in 1998 and 1999 must not fall below 23 percent.

The minister of tourism said that more than 1,180,000 tourists will have visited Cuba by the end of 1997, much higher than the 1,004,436 who visited the island in 1996, but lower than the original estimate of 1,197,000.

Experts attribute the gap between the original estimates and the final number of visitors to the wave of violent attacks against tourist sites, which caused the death of an Italian tourist, in 1997.

A report on the economy’s performance in 1997 by the minister of Economy and Planning, Jose Luis Rodriguez, assures that the income generated by the so-called “relaxation” industry grew more than 12 percent.

Sources from the National Statistics Office say that gross tourism income in 1996 grew by more than