
With winter nights drawing in throughout North America, Canadian “snowbirds” – residents who flee their freezing temperatures for sunnier climes yearly – are planning their annual journeys to Florida or the Caribbean.
Historically, Cuba has been vastly well-liked amongst Canadians, drawn to the pristine white sands of seaside resorts like Varadero.
They fill the void left by People cautious of the journey restrictions imposed on them below the persevering with US financial embargo of the most important island within the Caribbean.
Figures present that virtually a million Canadian vacationers visited Cuba final 12 months, the highest nation of origin for guests by some margin.
As such, a current resolution by the Canadian tour operator, Sunwing Holidays Group – certainly one of Cuba’s main journey companions – to take away 26 resorts from its Cuba portfolio is a blow to the island’s struggling tourism business.
Sunwing took the choice after Cuba endured a four-day nationwide blackout on the finish of October, attributable to failures with the nation’s getting old vitality infrastructure.
This was adopted by one other nationwide energy reduce final month, when Hurricane Rafael barrelled its manner throughout the island, worsening an already-acute electrical energy disaster.
A 3rd countrywide blackout then occurred on Wednesday, 4 Dec, after Cuba’s largest energy plant broke down.
“Cuba has had some volatility in the previous couple of weeks and which will shake client confidence,” Sunwing’s chief advertising and marketing officer, Samantha Taylor informed the Pax Information journey web site final month.
“There are unbelievable locations to go in Cuba,” she burdened, eager to emphasize that the corporate isn’t pulling out of Cuba altogether. “However we additionally recognise that if shoppers are a bit of uncomfortable, we have to give them choices.”
Particularly, that concerned drawing up a listing of what they referred to as “hidden gems” – different vacation locations within the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas and Colombia.

The implications for Cuba are clear.
With tourism now the island’s principal financial motor, and the primary supply of overseas foreign money earnings after remittances, that an necessary tour operator is pointing its prospects in the direction of different international locations’ seashores over crumbling vitality infrastructure is an actual concern.
“Our message to Canadians is that tourism is without doubt one of the economic system’s priorities,” mentioned Lessner Gómez, director of the Cuban Tourism Board in Toronto in an announcement. “The Ministry of Tourism has been getting ready for the winter season to ship higher companies, uninterrupted provides, a greater airport expertise, and extra and new automobile leases.”
Whereas Cuba’s tourism company tries to ease fears in regards to the extent of the electrical energy blackouts, few can deny that these have been extraordinarily tough months on the island. Hurricane Rafael was solely the most recent storm to hit Cuba in a frenetic Atlantic hurricane season wherein extra highly effective and extra frequent storms are the brand new regular.
In fact, extreme climate is an issue throughout the Caribbean. However for Cuba, there are different problems in play.
Donald Trump’s re-election to the White Home and his selection for Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, stand to make life much more sophisticated for Cubans than it already is.
“That is most likely the Cuban Revolution’s hardest second,” says former Cuban diplomat, Jesús Arboleya. “And sadly, I see nothing on the horizon in anyway which permits for an optimistic view of the way forward for US-Cuba relations.
“Donald Trump has handed US coverage in the direction of Cuba to these sectors of the Cuban American proper who’ve primarily lived off anti-Castro insurance policies since their origins.”
Mr Arboleya provides that Marco Rubio, at present a US Senator for Florida, is the main voice amongst them. He’s a Cuban American lengthy against the communist authorities in Havana.
His dad and mom had been Cubans who moved to the US in 1956, three years earlier than Fidel Castro seized energy, however his grandfather fled the Castro-led flip to communism on the island.
“Individuals are horrified by the thought of one other Donald Trump presidency. It spells actual hassle,” echoes Cuban political commentator and editor of Temas journal, Rafael Hernández.
Present US coverage in the direction of Cuba is “considerably schizophrenic”, he argues.
“On the one hand, the State Division facilitates help to the non-public sector, and [pushes for] financial adjustments in Cuba. However however, Congress and Senate appear to freeze any advances on these reforms.”

The expectation is, nonetheless, {that a} future Secretary of State Rubio will coalesce the US’s Cuba coverage round a single thought – most stress on the island by tightening the already-harsh sanctions.
Cubans worry that would imply the suspension of economic flights to Cuba, and even the closure of the US Embassy in Havana, which was formally reopened in 2015 after a long time of frosty relations.
If carried out, such steps can be intentionally designed to additional hurt Cuba’s floundering tourism commerce, the goal to hit the communist-run nation when it’s down. Vacationer numbers to Cuba have virtually halved because the excessive level of almost 5 million guests through the Obama-era détente with Cuba.
Between 2015-2017 US guests flocked to the island below extra relaxed journey restrictions, eager to expertise a rustic that had lengthy been denied them. Across the similar time, the Cuban authorities launched into a serious hotel-building spree, assured that demand would stay robust over the following decade.
Nevertheless, there adopted a double blow to Cuban tourism from which it hasn’t totally recovered. First, the Trump Administration rolled again President Obama’s engagement insurance policies, after which the Covid-19 pandemic despatched the business into freefall.

With a lot of these resorts now registering a lot decrease occupancy charges than initially predicted, and actual difficulties in offering the five-star buyer expertise as marketed amid the blackouts and shortages, some query the technique of placing so many eggs within the tourism basket within the first place.
“Why has Cuba invested 38% [of government funds] on common over the previous decade in resorts and infrastructure linked to worldwide tourism, however solely 8 to 9% on vitality infrastructure?” asks economist Ricardo Torres on the American College in Washington DC. “It doesn’t make sense. The resorts run on electrical energy.”
Even with all the present challenges, most guests agree that Cuba stays a novel journey expertise. The cliches – traditional automobiles, cigars and mojitos – nonetheless enchantment to many, whereas others favor to journey the island absorbing its historical past, tradition and music.
But as tour operator Sunwings’ resolution to step again reveals, some vacationers are discovering it exhausting to understand Cuba throughout its vitality disaster, particularly if it’s about to be exacerbated by a hostile administration – and Secretary of State – in Washington.