Juan Carlos Garcia Granda, Cuba's Minister of Tourism, discusses the steep decline in Cuban tourism from 4.7 million visitors in 2017 to approximately 2.2 million in 2024, primarily due to the pandemic and strained U.S. relations. He emphasizes the need to diversify tourism offerings and is targeting new markets, particularly in China, by easing travel restrictions. Garcia Granda criticizes government policies that restrict citizen freedoms and advocates for improved connectivity and visa strategies similar to the Schengen area to boost tourism across the region.
Attracting Chinese visitors benefits the whole region, he says.
Governments are wrong to prohibit citizens from freely doing what they choose to do.
Cuba is fine-tuning a complex strategy: diversifying the island's offerings beyond sun and beach tourism.
We need to start talking about visas that can be used across multiple countries, like the Schengen area in Europe.
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