CubitaNOW writing ~ Wednesday, March 15, 2023
Economist Pedro Monreal said on Wednesday that tourism in Cuba is “a bankrupt business”.
“Official statistics indicate that with a very low occupancy rate of 15.6% in 2022, the hotel business in Cuba was a bankrupt ‘business'”, a point Monreal on Twitter with official statistics from the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI).
“The low hotel occupancy rate in Cuba was well below that of beach destinations in Mexico (63.9% in May 2022) and the Dominican Republic, with rates above 70% in Punta Cana and Romana-Bayahibe in 2022″.
“The problem with Cuba’s very low hotel occupancy of 15.6% is not only that it is at a disadvantage compared to close competitors, but that it is below the level from which profits are obtained (threshold profitability), which on average is estimated at 52% in the Caribbean”.
“Faced with a low hotel occupancy rate in Cuba that is not compatible with obtaining benefits, two questions arise: a) Where did the resources come from to cover hotel losses?, and b ) What is the reason for persisting in excessive hospitality? investment?” asked Pedro Monreal in an article by the official Cubadebate media about the recent opening of the Gran Muthu Habana hotel.
“The official statistics of tourism in Cuba for January 2023 indicate the weakness of the post-pandemic recovery of the sector. January 2023 visitors were 63.3% of the January 2020 figure and about half of the record number of January 2018,” he pointed Montreal on March 1.
“The relative recovery in tourism in January 2023 was mainly driven by visitors from Canada, although numbers from that country were only 79.8% of the level of Canadian visitors in January 2020.”
“The Cuban community, with a much lower number of visitors than Canada, ranked second among the top eight emitters, with a partial recovery similar to that of Canada (77.2%) compared to January 2020.”
“The four main European emitters (Germany, France, Italy and Spain) contributed little to the recovery of tourism in Cuba in January 2023. The sum of all their visitors (24,176) was lower than that of the Cuban community (28,844 )” added the economist.
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