Cuba Chalks Up 4 Million Tourists for Second Year Running

With the arrival of four flights, three from Canada and one from Paris, the beautiful beach of Varadero in the Matanzas province, celebrated on Monday 6 November, Cuba’s breaking of the four-million-tourist mark for the second consecutive year.

Two flights run by Canadian tour operator Sunwing from Edmonton and Montreal, another one by fellow Canadian tour operator Transat coming from Toronto, and one flown by Corsair nonstop from Paris, brought on board 871 passengers that rounded out the arrival of four million tourists to the island nation.

This milestone is completed earlier than in 2016, the first year that the largest Caribbean island reached this figure for the first time ever.Authorities from the Ministry of Tourism of Cuba estimate that the Caribbean country is ready to grab over 4.1 million foreign visitors by the end of 2017.

Maria Elena OviedoFonseca, Marketing Director at the "Juan Gualberto Gómez" International Airport, said the designation of Varadero to celebrate the arrival of 4 million tourists to Cuba is an honor and a challenge for both the destination and to the air terminal .

“It is a privilege for us that the province of Matanzas has been chosen for this occasion, especially the Juan Gualberto Gómez International Airport in the travel destination of Varadero,” Mrs. Oviedo Fonseca told the media.

Since May, the Varadero airport, which annually receives more than half a million tourists, has been preparing for the start of the peak season of Cuban tourism.

The facility has one of the shorter periods of stay among all Cuban terminals, with an average of 18 and 25 minutes of waiting from the moment aircraft touches down on the tarmac to the moment tourists receive their baggageand leave for their hotels.

For her part,Ivis Fernandez Peña, delegate of the Minister of Tourism in the province of Matanzas, told Caribbean News Digital that Varadero always celebrates the arrival of one million tourists to the island nation’s top sun-and-beach travel destination. Now she feels honored that Cuba’s cracking of the four-million-tourist plateau has taken place in the lovely blue beach.

She said the choosing of Varadero for this celebration is also a recognition to Sunwing and Transat, two Canadian tour operators that year after year reel in more tourists to Cuba from the island nation’s top outbound market.

“Right now France is a market that’s growing steadily for Cuba, and we are delighted that it is precisely with a flight by Corsair from Paris, together with the flights from Edmonton, Montreal and Toronto, that this group of tourists round out four million foreign visitors in Cuba,” said Mrs. Fernández Peña in a one-on-one talk with Caribbean News Digital.

As a matter of fact, two travelers who arrived in Varadero on board the Paris flight were French journalists Antoinne Elzière and Pierre Boudot-Lamotte, editors and founders of Destination Cuba, a Paris-based quarterly magazine that targets exclusively the travel destination of Cuba.

The "Juan Gualberto Gómez" International Airport in Varadero opened on September 25, 1989, and the ribbon-cutting ceremony was presided over by former Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz.

Over 65 percent of tourists arriving in Cuba by this air terminal comes from Canada, while the rest is distributed among several European countries, including Germany, France, UK, Russia, Italy and Spain.