Cuban Tourism official data reveals that there is a 7 percent slide in foreign visitors to the Caribbean island in the first three months of 2018.
There is a steep drop in US travellers to Cuba after a tightening of travel restrictions by President Donald Trump.
The U.S. restrictions and warning on travel to Cuba were to blame for the lower number of U.S. arrivals from the same period a year ago, the Cuban Tourism Ministry’s commercial director, Michel Bernal told.
Cuba’s tourism sector is also affecting for the unjustified worries about devastation formed by Hurricane Irma last September. He said that this Communist run country had long since fixed its tourist installations.
Bernal said that the total number of US clients is only 56.6% of what it was in 2017.
The number of US travellers traveling to Cuba has surged after former U.S. President Barack Obama reached a landmark detente with then-Cuban President Raul Castro in 2014 and eased travel restrictions while maintaining a ban on tourism.
The increased U.S. arrivals to Havana in particular fostered the rapid growth of the country’s fledgling private sector, with many Cubans rushing to open bed-and-breakfasts and restaurants.
Tourism in Cuba became one of the few bright spots in economy. The country has long struggling with heavy state controls, a difficult market reform process that resulted in decline in aid from ally Venezuela and lower global commodity prices.
But US President Trump last year made it harder again for individual Americans to travel to Cuba, as part of his tougher stance on the country.
A few months later, his administration issued a warning on travel there because of an unexplained spate of illnesses among U.S. diplomats stationed in Havana.
The Cuban officials and many foreign tourism experts maintain Cuba is one of the safest destinations in the world.
The government still hopes the number of foreign visitors will reach the 5 million mark this year, Bernal said. It rose 16.2 percent to a record 4.7 million in 2017.
