Good news for travel enthusiasts as Cuba finally welcomes tourists after months of COVID-19 lockdown
Did you have Cuba on your travel bucket list? Well, here’s some good news for you as the country finally rolls out its red carpet for tourists post the COVID-19 lockdown
The countries have finally started lifting the nationwide lockdowns amid COVID-19 pandemic to boost the tourism industry and the latest to join the bandwagon is Cuba as it now welcomes travellers. Rolling out its red carpet for tourists post the COVID-19 lockdown, the news came as a ray of hope not just for travel enthusiasts but also for several laid-off leisure industry employees residing in the Communist-run island.
Similar to the rest of the world, Cuba had too closed its airports in March courtesy COVID-19 and decided to open from September 4. On Friday, an Air Canada plane arrived at the Cayo-Coco airport on the northcentral coast and is now expected to fly weekly to Cuba and biweekly from next month.
While the decades-old trade embargo makes the United States ban residents from making tourist trips to Cuba, they can still travel to the import-dependent country for purposes including education. On the other hand, Canada has long been the Caribbean island’s most important tourist provider.
A report in the Reuters revealed that Canada accounted for 1.1 million of the 4.2 million arrivals in Cuba last year, as per the government and the industry revenues were $2.6 billion in 2019. So far Cuba has reported 4,298 cases of coronavirus till date with 2,345 recovery cases and 100 deaths from COVID-19.
Though schools have opened elsewhere in Cuba, the alarming increase in coronavirus cases in Havana has pushed the city into a fortnight lockdown. The authorities are seeking to stamp out the surge in spread of the novel coronavirus in the capital while aggressive anti-virus measures like closing down air travel have almost eliminated COVID-19 in other Cuban cities.