{"id":450891,"date":"2026-02-03T09:43:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T09:43:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/450891\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T09:43:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T09:43:18","slug":"tourism-in-crisis-amid-fuel-and-power-shortages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/450891\/","title":{"rendered":"tourism in crisis amid fuel and power shortages"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Cuba\u2019s tourism sector suffered a sharp decline in 2025, with shortages of basic goods repelling visitors even before the United States began strangling the island\u2019s fuel supply.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Around 1.8 million people visited the Caribbean island last year, down 17.8 per cent from the previous year, the national statistics office ONEI said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The government of the cash-strapped nation of 11 million people, which relies on tourism to bring in hard currency, had been hoping for 2.6 million arrivals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">READ MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ctvnews.ca\/montreal\/article\/heading-to-cuba-exercise-a-high-degree-of-caution-canada-warns\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.ctvnews.ca\/montreal\/article\/heading-to-cuba-exercise-a-high-degree-of-caution-canada-warns\/\">Heading to Cuba? Exercise a high degree of caution, Canada warns<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The country\u2019s main tourist markets all shrank last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Visits by Cubans living abroad, mostly in the United States, fell 22.6 per cent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Arrivals from Germany, Russia and Canada were down 50.5 per cent, 29 per cent and 12.4 per cent respectively.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Last year \u201cwas terrible for international tourism to Cuba,\u201d Cuban economist Pedro Monreal wrote on X, adding: \u201cWe knew that would happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Cuba is in the throes of its worst economic crisis in decades, marked by power outages of up to 20 hours a day and critical shortages of fuel, medicines and food.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The outlook has worsened sharply since the Jan. 3 overthrow of Cuba\u2019s closest ally, Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">U.S. President Donald Trump has been ratcheting up pressure on Havana ever since, predicting its communist leadership is \u201cready to fall.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">He has vowed to cut off the flow of Venezuelan oil to Havana &#8212; for years the island\u2019s main supplier &#8212; and threatened tariffs on any other countries that provide oil to the country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Several countries have revised their travel advice for Cuba since the start of the year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">While most advise caution due to the shortages of fuel, power and other basics, Argentina has advised its nationals to avoid the island altogether.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cuba\u2019s tourism sector suffered a sharp decline in 2025, with shortages of basic goods repelling visitors even before&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[712,45,49,48,46],"class_list":["post-450891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-apple-news","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}