Cuban tourism sailed with a good wind in its favour in 2011 and a ten­den­cy which lo­cal au­thor­i­ties pre­dict will in­crease in 2012. The pre­dic­tion of 2.7 mil­lion vis­i­tors in these last 12 months was achieved with­out any prob­lem; now the fore­cast for the up­com­ing year is 2.9 mil­lion. The three mil­lion mark is not far in the hori­zon. Due to its vi­tal­i­ty and ca­pac­i­ty of re­sist­ing the ef­fects of the cri­sis, tourism con­tin­ues to be a per­ma­nent in­ter­est among the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. Cu­ba is not an ex­cep­tion and much less in the cur­rent pe­ri­od when tourism has re­cov­ered its op­ti­mism.

Among the pre­dic­tions for the high sea­son (No­vem­ber-April) an in­crease of ten per cent is ex­pect­ed with an im­prove­ment in the sec­tor for 2012. The main mar­kets con­tin­ue to be Cana­da ranked first with a record num­ber of one mil­lion va­ca­tion­ers; fol­lowed by Britain, Italy, Spain, Ger­many, France, Ar­genti­na, Rus­sia and Mex­i­co among oth­ers. Cu­ba is cur­rent­ly pri­ori­tis­ing the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, re­an­i­ma­tion and re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion of a group of ho­tel and ex­tra ho­tel in­stal­la­tions lo­cat­ed in its main tourism com­plex­es aimed at im­prov­ing the qual­i­ty of its ser­vice and in cor­re­spon­dence with the preser­va­tion and pro­tec­tion of its en­vi­ron­ment.

The Caribbean is­land is al­so plan­ning on the di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of its prod­uct, an in­crease of the com­fort of its rooms and re­in­forc­ing its cul­tur­al and his­toric ac­tiv­i­ties in tone with the needs of a sus­tain­able tourism, mak­ing the sec­tor health­i­er, de­mand­ing and rig­or­ous. The sec­tor con­tin­ues cen­ter­ing its pri­or­i­ties in qual­i­ty, pro­fes­sion­al­ism of its em­ploy­ees and eco­nom­ic ef­fi­cien­cy aimed at an in­crease of tourists and more earn­ings due to the coun­try´s need of hard cur­ren­cy. The Cuban Tourism Min­istry ex­pressed its sat­is­fac­tion for the favourable re­sults of the in­dus­try this past year and the im­por­tant po­ten­tial for 2012.

An of­fi­cial re­port re­vealed that this past year was pros­per­ous for the is­land with an eight per cent in­crease at the end of 2011. The re­port added that Cu­ba was rat­ed among the top is­lands in the Caribbean as a favourite des­ti­na­tion for va­ca­tion­ers. The doc­u­ment point­ed out that in less than ten years; the coun­try be­came the third tourism des­ti­na­tion in the Caribbean, "de­spite not hav­ing 50 per cent of the Unit­ed States mar­ket." Among the favourite tourism com­plex­es on the is­land are Va­radero Beach Re­sort (one mil­lion va­ca­tion­ers vis­it­ed this re­gion for the fourth con­sec­u­tive year); Ha­vana, Hol­guin and the keys to the north of Vil­la Clara, Jar­dines del Rey, Cayo Largo, San­ti­a­go de Cu­ba and San­ta Lu­cia Beach. The coun­try cur­rent­ly has 60,000 rooms.

(Caribbean­news­dig­i­tal)