Cuba’s Private Sector Makes a Splash in the Travel Industry

Make no mistakes about it; with some 16,000 guestrooms and over 1,700 restaurants to choose from, Cuba’s private sector is increasingly becoming a powerhouse of the island nation’s travel industry.

The push of local private businesspeople is so hefty, that now the country’s Tourism Ministry has decided to unify the statistics yielded by both the public and private sectors in an effort to shed more light on how much revenue Cuba is actually earning out of travel and tourism.

According to figures provided by the local Tourism Ministry, a quarter of all foreign tourists who visited Cuba last year stayed in private houses, accounting for over 555,000 visitors.

Cuban hotels run by foreign chains, state-run companies or through joint ventures embrace a grand total of 83,000 guestrooms, with ambitious plans in store to reach as many as 108,000 by the year 2030.

The largest Caribbean island has been putting good numbers on the board over the past two years, with a staggering 11.7 percent increase in the first half of the ongoing year. Last year Cuba raked in more than $2.8 billion worth of tourism revenue.

And don’t downplay the American factor. A year into the resumption of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States –severed for over half a century and officially restored in June last year- over 700,000 American sunbathers have visited Cuba.