Visitors to Cuba will be able to benefit from a 90-day tourist visa starting this pasat Tuesday, renewable once for the same period, displacing the previous 30-day extension, according to the authorities.
“As of November 1st of this year, the validity of the #Tourism visa is extended to 90 days of permanence in the national territory – extendable only once for the same period – which allows visitors to extend their stay foreigners in #Cuba,” Tourism Minister Juan Carlos García Granda announced on Twitter.
A vital source of foreign currency
Cuba, with 11.2 million inhabitants, relies on tourism as a source of foreign currency to reactivate its economy, seriously affected by the consequences of the pandemic and the reinforcement of US sanctions.
But the target of attracting 2.5 million visitors by the end of 2022 was revised down by the government, which now expects 1.7 million tourists to arrive, according to state-run newspaper Granma.
Since the beginning of the year, one million tourists have visited the largest island in the Caribbean, according to the same source. In 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic, more than 4.2 million tourists had visited the island. That same year, tourism contributed to Cuba an income of $2,645 million dollars.
