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Cuban tourism falls 62 per cent

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13:24UTC

Cuba's statistics office recorded 419,000 visitors from January to July against 1.1 million a year earlier, as hotel chains suspended contracts and airlines dropped flights over refuelling.

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Key takeaway

Cuban arrivals fell 62 per cent, and the airlines that left will not return quickly.

Cuba's national statistics office (ONEI) recorded 419,000 visitors from January to July against 1.1 million a year earlier, a fall of 62 per cent and a worsening on the 55.8 per cent recorded to April . Those are state figures, and they reached Lowdown through Associated Press because ONEI's own site could not be reached ¹.

Meliá, Iberostar and Royalton have suspended their contracts, and World2Fly, Air France, Turkish Airlines and Iberia suspended flights after refuelling stopped ². An aircraft that cannot take on fuel at a Cuban airport cannot fly the route home, whatever the bookings look like, so the fuel shortage that darkens the island also removes the means of reaching it.

Capacity and demand then run on separate clocks. An airline that drops a route moves the aircraft and the crew onto another one, and bringing it back needs a slot, a published schedule and a season to sell into. A hotel chain that has released its rooms has to re-contract them. Cuba is losing the sector twice over, once in the visitors who did not arrive this year and once in the capacity that will not be waiting when they might.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Cuba's national statistics office, ONEI, counted 419,000 foreign visitors between January and July 2026, down from 1.1 million in the same period last year, a fall of 62 per cent. The drop got worse as the year went on, and airlines responded: World2Fly, Air France, Turkish Airlines and Iberia all suspended flights once they could no longer reliably refuel in Cuba. Hotel chains Meliá, Iberostar and Royalton suspended contracts too. Tourism has long been one of Cuba's main sources of foreign currency, so fewer visitors means less hard currency reaching an economy already short of it.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

The worsening trend, from a 55.8 per cent year-on-year fall recorded to April to 62 per cent by July, tracks the deepening fuel crisis more closely than it tracks sanctions timing. Aviation fuel shortages disrupting refuelling are the proximate cause airlines cited directly for suspending routes.

A second cause is data itself: ONEI's own website was unreachable, and the figures reached the public through Associated Press rather than a Cuban government release, suggesting either a technical failure or reluctance to publish a number this unfavourable directly.

Sources:Diario de Cuba

Mentions:Meliá →Iberostar →France →Cuba →Associated Press →

First Reported In

Update #14 · Havana makes the hiring middleman optional

Diario de Cuba· 8 Sept 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Tourism falls 55.8% as the peso slides

The January-July tourism fall of 62 per cent worsened from the 55.8 per cent recorded to April.

Occurred 15 Jun 2026

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This Event

Cuban tourism falls 62 per cent

An airline that pulls a route does not put it back in the week demand returns.

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