(23 Jul 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Havana, Cuba – 23 July 2025
1. Various of street, musicians playing while sitting on the sidewalk
2. Various of Carla Silva and her friend dancing in the street with the musicians
3. SOUNDBITE (Portuguese) Carla Silva, Portuguese tourist:
“Cuba is very beautiful and has a rich culture. The people are very nice, but there is one thing that makes me sad, their reality is completely different from ours.”
4. People within hallway
5. Tourists walking down the street
6. Beatriz Colmena entering a restaurant
7. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Beatriz Colmena, Spanish tourist:
“I am young, so I don’t mind (the difficulties) so much, but I can imagine an older person might not be so disposed to deal with those problems, which may be why (tourism) has declined. But it’s a very nice country to come and visit.”
8. Tourists walking through street
9. Empty Cathedral Square
10. Tourist sitting while Afro-Cuban priest reads her cards
11. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) José Fabian Jiménez, Argentine tourist:
“The struggle they have here with the economy is very noticeable. What surprised us is how popular the dollar is, for example, how they charge for everything in dollars. You have to pay in dollars, and the Cuban currency is losing strength. But I think that coming to Cuba and spending our money in Cuba helps the Cuban people.”
12. Various of musician playing his trumpet in empty streets
STORYLINE:
The number of tourists arriving in Cuba in the first half of 2025 fell by 25% compared to the same period last year.
The news about the decline in this vital sector of the Cuban economy adds to the growing financial challenges facing the country, which have negatively impacted the population’s quality of life over the past five years.
According to the official newspaper Granma, based on data from the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI), the island recorded 981,856 visitors between January and June, which is 327,799 fewer than in the same period in 2024.
Canada remains the top source of visitors with 428,125 arrivals. The newspaper reported declines in visitors from major markets like Russia, Germany, France, Spain, and the Cuban community abroad.
The tourists still visiting the island are faced with garbage piling up in the streets, power outages, and food shortages that affect even some of the best hotels.
The few tourists in the streets of Havana on Wednesday praised the island’s beauty but viewed the poverty and hardships as drawbacks to visiting the capital.
“I am young, so I don’t mind (the difficulties) so much, but I can imagine an older person might not be so disposed to deal with those problems,” said Spanish tourist, Beatriz Colmena.
Argentine tourist José Fabian Jiménez said that he had to pay everything in U.S. dollars while the Cuban peso lost its value. “I think that coming here and spending money will help them.”
Tourism is vital to the Cuban economy, as it generated revenues of over $3 billion at the end of the last decade, with a significant impact on the population, both through the better-paid jobs it created and through the non-state sector—shops, restaurants, and services—which supported household finances.
Cuba received 2.4 million visitors in 2023, dropping to 2.2 million in 2024, and remains far below the 4.2 million visitors in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic severely impacted the sector.
The start of stricter US sanctions also affected travel, banning cruises and limiting visits to certain hotels or locations, with heavy fines for violations.
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