Cuba hotels 73% closed as tourism stalls, PM says

Prime Minister Manuel Marrero said Wednesday that 73% of Cuba's hotels have been closed and the island's tourism sector has been brought to “almost total paralysis” by US sanctions and fuel shortages.

Marrero said seven international chains, responsible for about half of all hotel rooms, had left the island. He said about 25,000 workers had been left “in a vulnerable situation.”

Tourism had been Cuba's second-largest source of foreign currency earnings and employed more than 300,000 people before the crisis deepened this year.

After Havana announced an aviation fuel shortage in February, Canadian, Russian and European airlines suspended flights to Cuba. The sector's problems accelerated after Washington imposed sanctions in May on the military-run conglomerate GAESA, prompting several international operators to end hotel management agreements to avoid US penalties.

Spanish groups Melia and Iberostar continued operating hotels in partnership with Cuba's Tourism Ministry, but Washington widened its sanctions in July.

Official figures show tourist arrivals dropped 58% between January and June compared with the same period a year earlier.