Even in the winter and pandemic months, paradise remained intact: the fine sand, the swaying palm trees, the seagulls flying low over the crystalline sea and even the lounge chairs. Only there was no one to enjoy it.
This is what Varadero looks like, the most important tourist center in Cuba and one of the most famous in the Caribbean, with its small neighboring town of 6,000 inhabitants, its 22 kilometers of beaches and more than 60 hotels that until the arrival of the new coronavirus received up to 30,000 daily tourists.
Nearing one year of the pandemic, the fall in tourism in Cuba – the engine of the island’s finances – had a domino effect: lower income, loss of jobs, deserted streets, empty craft markets and restaurants with low curtains. .
“There is nothing here, everything is closed, no people can be seen,” Yamel Zaragoza, 51, a store clerk, told The Associated Press in a muffled voice. “It is a sad town … we are hopeful that tourism will flow, it is the spirit of this resort,” he added during an AP tour of Varadero.
Along the main avenue that runs parallel to the beach it was usual in previous years, even in low season, to see visitors in shorts and T-shirts, children running around with their life jackets, souvenir vendors, street musicians or the food kiosks whose aroma was mixed with that of the marine saltpeter.
In 2019, before the pandemic and already with an unfavorable situation because for the first time a decrease in activity had been reported, Cuba received at the national level just under 4.3 million visitors -9% less than in 2018-, according to the Ministry of Tourism. The figure reflected the tightening of US sanctions on the island and the bankruptcy of a key partner, British tour operator Thomas Cook.
But in 2020 the Caribbean nation broke the worst record with the arrival of only one million tourists, mostly concentrated in the first quarter before airports on the island and in the sending countries were closed to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
Varadero was among the most affected Cuban tourist destinations: in 2019 it had received one and a half million visitors, in 2020 it did not reach half a million.
“We are working in Varadero with very low levels of activity,” Ivis Fernández, delegate of the Ministry of Tourism in the province of Matanzas, to which the resort belongs, told AP.
Fernández summed up the year: from March to July total closure, in summer and until September occupations of the internal market -mainly Cuban families- and a little better from October with the gradual reopening of international tourist activity with some arrivals of British tourists and Canadians. But in January, due to a flare-up, flight limitations were imposed again.
Varadero has 22,000 rooms and its hotels – including global chains such as Meliá, Iberostar or Fiesta Americana – employ some 18,000 people, most of them from the neighboring towns of Cárdenas, Boca de Camarioca or Santa Marta, Fernández said. Currently 50% are working and the rest work in other areas of the economy or are subsidized at home.
An example of the complex setting is that of the five-star Meliá Internacional hotel, a kind of flagship of the Spanish firm in Varadero with 946 rooms, “all inclusive” service and one of the few that remains open with its wooden terraces and comfortable rocking chairs. .
“There has been an impact,” acknowledged José Antonio Ramírez, the 43-year-old Mexican who is the hotel’s general manager. “It is not what we expected in our projections, but we see ourselves with an open, functional hotel, giving our customers satisfaction up to now … and sending the message that tourism can be done despite the pandemic.”
The center had to adapt to sanitary standards, its employees walk around with a mask and every so often they disinfect the facilities while the distance between visitors is imposed.
At its best, the Meliá Internacional employed a thousand people; last week there were only about 190 employees serving 121 guests, most of them from Germany.
According to delegate Fernández, Varadero had an occupancy of 8% last week and most of the months that it was without visitors, infrastructure works were carried out in the town – a boulevard, the underground networks – and maintenance in the hotels.
But neither for Varadero nor for Cuba the prognosis of the sector looks immediately favorable, not even with a massive vaccination despite the fact that Cuba is the only Latin American nation that has two of its own antigens in the final stage of the clinical trial.
“I think the behavior of the year will not change. From the tourist point of view there are (beyond the vaccine) other factors that do not depend on Cuba or any of the Caribbean destinations, ”José Luis Perelló, a specialist and former academic, told AP.
The difficulties in the normalization of the operations of the air lines, the cancellation of operating cruise ships -in the case of Cuba aggravated by the ban imposed by former President Donald Trump and which is expected to be lifted by Joe Biden- and the lack of confidence of the Consumers who still view leisure travel with suspicion will also affect tourism, Perelló said.
Although there is no official information on the income obtained in 2020 from tourism, Perelló estimated them at about 600 million dollars against the 3,000 that were calculated in 2019.
The drop is dramatic for a small economy like Cuba – highly dependent on tourism, with little diversity in its production and sanctioned by the United States – which last year had a drop in its Gross Domestic Product of 11% and which has translated into long lines due to the shortage of basic goods.
The alternative for the vital sector, according to Perelló, is to work to reconquer traditional markets -Canada, Spain, England, France and Germany-, although, he acknowledged, there is still “too long a stretch” for the island’s destinations to return to The normality.
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Andrea Rodríguez is on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ARodriguezAP
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