14ymedio, Madrid, January 17, 2024 — Cuba closed the year 2023 certifying its inability to recover the tourism it had before the COVID-19 pandemic. With a final figure of 2,436,980 international visitors, the Island achieves 151% more than in 2022, but 42.8% less than in 2019. In addition, if compared to its aspirations, 3.5 million arrivals, the percentage is 31% lower.
The worst forecasts of the Cuban economist Pedro Monreal are almost fulfilled. In April 2023, given the data of the first quarter, he warned the Cuban authorities of the importance of making a correction to its forecasts. “A simple exercise of scenarios – not a forecast – that could certainly be improved, would indicate a possible range between 2.3 and 3.1 million, with an intermediate scenario of 2.9 million,” the professor wrote nine months ago. His most pessimistic figure is quite close to reality.
The data were released on the same day that Brussels confirmed that the European Union exceeded by 1.6% the overnight stays in tourist accommodation in 2019, with Spain, which registered 483 million tourists, in the lead, followed by France (456 million) and Germany (433 million). In the specific case of the first, 32.3 million more nights were achieved than a year earlier.
The data were released on the same day that Brussels confirmed that the European Union exceeded the overnight stays in tourist accommodations of 2019 by 1.6%, with Spain in the lead
In addition to Spain, which also has a strong commitment to sun and beach tourism, there are other countries that compete even more directly with Cuba, such as the Dominican Republic, which closed the year surpassing the record of 10 million international travelers, and Mexico, which received 17 million tourists, 13.8% m