Cuba plans cautious reopening to tourists

by Katell Abiven

Cuba is planning to welcome tourists with COVID-19 tests and limit their contact with locals as part of a raft of measures designed to get its vital tourism industry back up and running.

The government of President Miguel Diaz-Canel said it would gradually open up the economy in the next weeks, with a particular focus on recovering tourism dollars lost to the lockdown.

Foreign tourists, the lifeblood of Cuba’s economy, will be restricted to a well established string of coastal resorts to limit contact with the local population in a country, where Diaz-Canel insisted, the coronavirus pandemic was “under control.”

Havana and the rest of the country will be initially be reserved for local tourism.

The island, with a population of just over 11 million, registered its first cases of COVID-19 — three Italian tourists — in March. It reported only eight new infections on Thursday.

So far Cuba has reported 2,219 COVID-19 cases, with 84 deaths.

But the pandemic shutdown has throttled the economy, and the government is eyeing the early revival of tourism, worth $3.3 billion in 2018. (AFP)