During the general blackout, the regime supplied the hotels with water for their tanks and fuel for their generators.
The number of Russian travelers has increased in recent years. / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Havana, 29 October 2024 — The fact that last week’s news of the blackout was published in the world’s leading newspapers did not do the Cuban regime any favors, as it fears losing the few tourists that continue to arrive on the island. On Monday, the commercial director of the Cuban Ministry of Tourism, Gihana Galindo Enríquez, tried to dispel the bad opinions about Cuba as a vacation destination for Russians, a market that has shown growth in recent years. “The impact of this situation on the country’s tourism sector was minimal,” she assured the Tass agency.
Galindo does not deny the crisis, but treats it as a temporary inconvenience, despite the fact that the country has been suffering for several years from fuel shortages and breakdowns in thermoelectric plants, which have plunged Cubans into long days of blackouts. The official, however, presents it as a solved problem: “We were able to confront this crisis and take corrective measures.” This Tuesday, the Electric Union announced an energy deficit of 1,318 megawatts.
She also defended the actions of the island’s authorities, who did everything possible to ensure that travelers remained unaffected by the difficulties caused by the total blackout. “When this situation made it difficult to serve customers, they were transferred to other hotels where they were provided with complete recreational facilities,” she explained, which helped to ensure that no tourist itinerary was cancelled.
Authorities did everything possible to ensure that travelers remained oblivious to the difficulties caused by the total blackout
For the high season, which coincides with winter on the Island, Galindo said that the hotels have backup generators – the same ones that kept all the tourist establishments operating while Cuba was completely shut down for more than three days – which “guarantees the maintenance of the viability of tourist services.”
Galino also referred to the particular concerns of Russian tourists, such as the ability to pay in rubles through Mir cards. “We have not had any imbalance in transactions with the Russian market and with the markets of other countries,” she said.
As if the official’s words were not enough, the Russian agency also interviewed Konstantin Dudkin, head of the Varadero department of the Moscow-based travel company Pegas Touristik. The manager’s response did not disappoint the official line: “Based on some of the global problems that Cuba has experienced in the past, the Administration, the Government and the Ministry of Tourism have taken the necessary measures to provide everything required in a time of extreme uncertainty and to keep the tourism sector afloat.”
Dudkin added that the regime guaranteed hotel services by filling water tanks, refueling generators and transporting tourists to other facilities – all tasks that involve the use of fuel that the state had always told the population it did not possess.
The director of the tourist agency even defended the island’s government by speaking about the United States embargo
The director of the tourist agency even defended the island’s government, speaking about the US embargo and the unwillingness of some countries to assist Cuba. “We must bear in mind that we are not on the continent, where borders are open and these problems can be quickly resolved,” she explained, adding: “It is clear how difficult it is for them to do certain things, unlike other countries. I think everything was done at the right level. In my opinion, they tried to resolve all the problems that arose. It worked exceptionally well. Our company’s operations were not affected by this situation,” she concluded.
“As Artur Muradyan, vice-president of the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (Ator) for international tourism and general director of the Space Travel tour operator, told TASS earlier, the situation with the power outage in Cuba had virtually no impact on Russian tourists. Ator also reported that there were no mass cancellations of tours to Cuba due to a large-scale power outage there,” the news agency concluded.
In an interview with Tass a few days earlier, Galindo said that the Russian market was on the rise and that the number of travelers from that destination who had arrived on the Island in 2024 was 8% higher than in 2023. The official even estimated that “if there are enough planes that can fly such long distances, then in the last two months of the year” there could be more than 200,000 Russian travelers.
The overall numbers do not match the regime’s expectations of reaching 3.2 million travelers this year
While it is true that Russia has positioned itself as the country that sends the third most tourists to the Island, the overall numbers do not match the Cuban regime’s expectations of reaching 3.2 million travelers this year. As of September 1, 1,608,078 foreigners had arrived, 58,920 fewer than the same period in 2023, and expectations could not be worse, especially for a regime that has invested everything in this sector. Cuba’s main source of tourists, Canada, fell in August, with a cumulative total of 665,871, 1.5% less than the same month of the previous year.
With destinations that are better equipped and cheaper in the region, such as the Dominican Republic, Cuba is becoming an increasingly unattractive option for travelers. François Laramée, a Quebec travel agent who was in Varadero during the blackout, gave an interview to the LCN network where he could not have been more blunt. “It was pathetic,” he said, and concluded: “Even in a five-star hotel, it was catastrophic.”
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