#Cuba #surge #foreign #tourists #hoping #Russians
The number of foreign tourists visiting Cuba so far this year has increased nearly six-fold from the 2021 period, but remains below pre-pandemic levels, the government said on Saturday.
Officials say they hope to see more Russian tourists once flights resume this year because of Covid-19 and the Ukraine war.
The National Bureau of Statistics (ONEI) said 834,891 tourists visited the island from January to July, compared to 141,293 visits in the first seven months of 2021.
International tourism is Cuba’s second-largest economic activity after sales of medical services, but the pandemic and ongoing travel restrictions from the United States caused numbers to plummet in 2020 and 2021.
The total number of foreign visitors fell from 4.2 million in 2019 to one million a year later.
But with Covid-19 under better control, Cuban authorities hope to hit 2.5 million visits this year.
The communist-ruled country is particularly banking on a revival of tourism from Russia, which ousted Canada as the largest source of foreign visitors in 2020 and 2021.
Cuban Ambassador to Moscow Julio Garmendia told Russian newspaper Izvestia last week that efforts are underway to resume canceled flights by this winter.
“We know that Russians are eager to vacation in Cuba again, and the Cuban people are waiting for them with typical hospitality,” he said, the official Cubadebate blog reported.
However, data from ONEI shows that Canada is the leading source of tourists this year as well, with 258,896 tourists.
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