HAVANA — The collapse of the tourism sector and the worsening of the energy crisis forced the Cuban regime to implement emergency measures that included the closure of hotel facilities and the dollarization of fuel.
The sector, once considered the locomotive of the economy, confirmed its collapse by closing the year 2025 with just 1.8 million international travelers, its worst record since 2002 if the pandemic period is excluded.
The regime’s deputy prime minister, Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga, assured on state television that “a tourism plan has been designed to reduce energy consumption, compact tourist facilities, and take advantage of the high season that is currently taking place in our country.”
The head of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment did not specify details about this “compaction” of the tourist infrastructure, but sources confirmed that hotels are being closed and international tourists are being relocated to other centers.
This plummet, which represented a drastic decrease compared to the record of 4.7 million visitors in 2018, forced the authorities to begin a “compaction” of the tourist infrastructure in key poles such as Varadero and the northern keys.
The decline in vital source markets such as Canada and Russia, with year-on-year falls of 12.4% and 29% respectively, added to a hotel occupancy rate of just 21.5%, left the regime without the flow of foreign currency necessary to sustain the country’s operations.
The Cuban regime imposes dollarization
Given the lack of crude oil and foreign currency, the regime indefinitely suspended the sale of fuel in Cuban pesos and restricted access to gasoline exclusively through foreign currency. The state-run CIMEX SA Corporation made it official that the supply of diesel was canceled for the civilian population, while gasoline was rationed through the Ticket digital platform with a limit of 20 liters per user, reports the Diario de Cuba web portal.
This survival maneuver came just a week after authorities tried to market the fuel without restrictions, a failed effort to oxygenate state coffers in the face of pressure from Washington and the end of vital supplies after recent events in Caracas.
The current scenario led the dictator Miguel Díaz-Canel to rescue the concept of “zero option”, an extreme survival plan designed by Fidel Castro during the Special Period of the 1990s.
This anti-crisis package, which evoked the “zero oil” scenario, involved a return to the use of animal traction, charcoal and draconian rationing in all basic services. By conditioning any improvement on the uncertain availability of resources, the Cuban regime confirmed the depth of a collapse that paralyzed national logistics and dismantled the tourism industry in a desperate attempt to avoid the total paralysis of the Island.
SOURCE: With information from EFE/Diario de Cuba
