Cuba gets positive outcomes in tourism sector, despite US measures

¨2020 will be as a complicated year as 2019, but we can fulfill the plan drawn out,¨ said Victor Manuel Lemagne, general secretary of the National Union of Hotel and Tourism Workers in Cuba, in dialogue with Prensa Latina.

¨We are planning to reach 5.1 million visitors in 2019, but the tightening of the economic, financial and commercial US blockade against Cuba, as well as problems in the main tourists´ countries prevented us from reaching such a figure,¨ Manuel Lemagne said.

As part of the US measures against Cuba, the Donald Trump administration banned in June cruiser trips to the island, and then restricted commercial and charter flights only to the capital, Havana, and in smaller numbers.

In 2020, Cuban authorities await the arrival of 4.5 million holidaymakers, about 200,000 more than achieved in 2019.

Despite the international context we have made progress in several areas, Lemagne said.

To achieve greater efficiency we must raise the average-income per tourist and cut energy consumption without affecting the quality of service, he stressed. (Prensa Latina)