Cuba Tourism is Dying: Exodus From the Island

M.A. Dworkin 

Havana, Cuba - Cuba is one of 19 countries listed in President Trump’s latest travel ban. U.S. citizens were already prohibited from visiting the island for tourism, although there were 12 “permissible” types of travel, including study, sports competitions, and educational visits. Now, the U.S. government is planning on enforcing its travel ban more stringently. 

Consequently, tourism to Cuba remains far below pre-pandemic levels. During the first six months of 2025, tourism to the island was down 27 percent versus the year before, and down 62 percent compared to 2019.

The loss of tourists plagues many areas of everyday life in the already crippled Cuban economy, which has endured decades of U.S. sanctions, i.e. a trade embargo initially instituted by President John F. Kennedy, much of which was eased under the Obama Administration and reversed under President Trump’s first term.  

The ripple effect of such U.S. sanctions and travel bans has stung a people that have struggled, in many ways, to survive life under the continuing ghosts of the Castro communist regime. Currently, Miguel Diaz-Canel serves as the First Secretary of the Communist Party, the most powerful person in the Cuban government, taking over from Raul Castro (Fidel Castro’s brother) who stepped down in 2019. 

The island is currently experiencing its largest population exodus since it became independent, gaining its independence from the United States in 1902. Since 2022, it is estimated that Cuba has lost nearly 25 per cent of its population. Apparently, many Cubans no longer want to live under an authoritarian regime that provides them with little hope for a prosperous future and practices oppressive tactics on its citizenry. Most of those who have left are relatively young and find no future for themselves and their families on the island. Some describe Havana as being “A ghost town, empty, devoid of any real life.” 

The Cuban population has long been one of the oldest in Latin America, and the exodus of working-age Cubans will only exacerbate the crisis.

The island has always relied on tourism for its economic stability, but that approach to provide Cuban prosperity has long since stopped working. 

“The people of the island seem exhausted,” reports one journalist. “I have never seen them express such desperation and hopelessness.”

The problems reach deep into every home. The price of food has skyrocketed. A pound of pork which used to cost 30 pesos, now costs several hundred pesos. And Cuba’s most basic food staple, rice, reached an astronomical price of over 300 pesos per pound this year. Beans, rice, sugar, bread, meat and eggs were once provided to Cubans at a heavily subsidized price through the libreta, (ration book), but that system has been steadily decimated. People either buy products at a much higher price in private stores, or go without. 

These stringent conditions are in stark contrast to the ample variety of delectable dishes available for visiting tourists, who are able to dine in hotels on meals unavailable to the majority of citizens. 

The Castro regime has implemented measures often referred to by experts as “tourist apartheid” - such as not allowing Cuban nationals to enter hotels unless accompanied by foreigners. Yet, Cubans and foreigners are prohibited from staying together in rental rooms in private homes unless they are married. Police harassment of Cuban nationals has also increased to levels not seen since Fidel Castro took over the island in 1959, when he overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Citizens are regularly stopped and asked for their ID, particularly if they are walking with foreigners. Black Cubans are particularly targeted by police and assumed to be hustlers.

The economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. have been blamed by the current Cuban government in Havana for the country’s decay, and with it, its inability to attract visitors. But Washington points to the oppressive policy decisions of the authoritarian regime as justification for the country’s decline. 

There are a growing number of Cubans who believe that many amongst them would  be better off had they stayed under the rule of the dictator Batista with his decadent, Mafia-infiltrated, economy rather than have their island suffer the slow-death of decades that have brought about persecution, poverty, and false promises from 70 years of iron-fisted Communist-rule. Unfortunately,  to people who were once considered to be the “life of the Caribbean,” there is little hope of them returning to the days of the celebrated songs of Celia Cruz: La vida es un carnaval (Life is a Carnival).