HAVANA — Cuba welcomed its 2 millionth tourist of 2008 on Friday
with a salsa band, strong mojitos and word that the island expects to
set a record this year for foreign visitors despite three hurricanes
and a global economic crisis.
Authorities hung a red-and-white banner reading "welcome visitor" in
five languages just outside the customs area as Air Canada Flight 370
from Toronto touched down at Havana Airport.
"Is this a nice way to start? I’ll say!" said Helen Lueke, a
secretary in her 60s from Sherwood Park, Canada, who comes to Cuba
about once a year — but has never been greeted at the airport with
mojitos.
Cuba didn’t single out a visitor No. 2 million, rather symbolically
marked the flight’s arrival along with similar celebrations at
international airports in the eastern city of Santiago and in Varadero,
the famous beach resort northeast of Havana.
Alexis Trujillo, first vice minister of tourism, said Cuba has
surpassed 2 million annual foreign visitors every year since 2004.
But Nov. 14 is the earliest date the communist nation has ever
reached the mark, he added, leading Cuba to predict it would pass its
2005 record of 2.3 million visitors.
Trujillo said tourism is up 10.7 percent compared to last year,
despite Hurricanes Gustav, Ike and Paloma, which destroyed nearly half
a million homes and did more than $10 billion in damage when they
roared through the island in recent weeks.
Hotels, restaurants and other tourist sites were damaged in coastal
areas in the provinces of Camaguey and Holguin, as well as in
tobacco-growing Pinar del Rio. But the storms spared Cuba’s top tourist
destinations: Havana’s crumbling but majestic, decades-old
architecture, and Varadero, which Trujillo said would attract 1 million
foreign visitors alone this year for the first time.
Washington’s trade embargo prohibits most Americans from coming to Cuba.
But Canada, Britain, Spain and Italy rank as the island’s top
sources of visitors. Foreign tourists to Cuba topped 2.3 million in
2005 but fell in 2006 and slipped again to 2.1 million last year —
dealing a financial blow to a nation that relies on tourism for much of
its hard-currency revenue. The industry brought in $2.2 billion in 2007.
