Virus-hit tourist resort in Cuba an empty paradise

Cuba's pristine beaches are a paradise lost for sun seeking tourists in times of COVID-19.

The fine sand, the sun, the fanning palm trees, the delightful sea breeze all are still here but there was no one to enjoy it.

The most important tourist center in Cuba, and one of the most famous in the Caribbean, remained deserted last week.

Varadero, with its small neighboring town of 6,000 inhabitants, its 22 kilometers of beaches and 60 hotels along the coast, had, until the arrival of the new coronavirus, received up to 30,000 tourists a day.

One year of the worldwide pandemic has devastated the tourism industry here as elsewhere, striking at the heart of Cuban finances which are experiencing a domino effect due to the loss of income and jobs.

Locals are experiencing real anguish at seeing the streets deserted, the craft markets empty and the restaurants and bars with curtains drawn in this resort town that now awaits for better days to come.

In 2019 Cuba's Ministry of Tourism reported its first decline in tourism with the island welcoming 9% fewer tourists than in 2018.

The figure reflected the decline caused by the tightening of United States sanctions against the island and the bankruptcy then of a key partner, the British tour operator Thomas Cook.

But in 2020 the Caribbean nation had its worst year on record welcoming just one million tourists, mostly during the year's first quarter, before the COVID-19 pandemic closed local airports on the island as well as those of visiting countries.

Varadero was among the areas most affected by this precipitous downturn, with 60 hotels employing workers from neighbouring towns depending on tourism income.

In 2019, Varadero received one and a half million visitors; in 2020 not even one million people graced its white beaches.

"There has been an impact," José Antonio Ramírez, the 43-year-old general director of Meliá International, of Mexican nationality, acknowledged to the AP. "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 hotel has had to adapt to sanitary standards, its employees wearing facemasks and everything is disinfected every so often. At the same time, social distancing between the visitors is imposed.

At full capacity, Meliá International employs a thousand employees in Cuba.  Last week there were only about 190 who served 121 guests, most of them from a flight from Germany.

According to tourism officials, last week Varadero had an 8% occupancy rate and a good part of many months prior without visitors.

Local administrators have taken the opportunity to improve some of the local infrastructure - a boulevard, the underground sewage and electrical networks - and in the hotels maintenance, as well as finishing construction of rooms to expand availability.

But the prognosis for this industry does not look immediately favorable, even under the premise of massive vaccination. Cuba is the only Latin American nation that has two of its own antigenic products at the end of their clinical trials.

Cuba must now attempt to bring back tourism as it continues to face the pandemic and recover business lost by the cancellation of operating cruise ships because of the pandemic.