As harsh winter nights approach across North America, Canada’s snowbirds – citizens who flee freezing temperatures for sunnier climes each year – are planning their annual trips to Florida or the Caribbean. Traditionally, Cuba is very popular with Canadians, attracted by the pristine white sand of resort towns like Varadero.
They fill the void left by Americans wary of travel restrictions imposed on them under the ongoing U.S. economic embargo on the Caribbean’s largest island. Figures show that nearly a million Canadian tourists visited Cuba last year, making the country by far the top country of origin for visitors.
Therefore, the recent decision by Canadian tour operator Sunwing Vacations Group (WestJet Group) – one of Cuba’s main tourism partners – to remove 26 hotels from its portfolio is a major blow to the island’s struggling tourism industry. Caribbean under communist control.
Sunwing made the decision after Cuba suffered a four-day nationwide power outage in late October, caused by breakdowns in the country’s aging and dilapidated energy infrastructure. Last month, another nationwide power outage occurred when Hurricane Rafael swept across the island, worsening an already acute power crisis. Then, on Wednesday, December 4, a third nationwide power outage occurred after Cuba’s largest power plant failed.
The implications for Cuba are serious. Given that tourism is the most important economic engine of the Castro dictatorship and the main source of foreign exchange earnings after remittances, it is a real problem that a very large tour operator sends its customers to the beaches of other countries facing the collapse of energy infrastructure.
As Cuban tourism authorities try to allay fears about the extent of the power outages, few can deny that it has been an extremely difficult few months on the island. Hurricane Rafael is just the latest storm to hit Cuba during a turbulent Atlantic hurricane season in which stronger, more frequent storms are the new normal.
But for Cuba, there are now other complications. The re-election of Donald Trump to the White House and the election of Marco Rubio as Secretary of State will make life for Cubans even harder than it already is.
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