Cuba attracts 1m tourists so far in 2016

[El Presidente]

Little wonder that members are getting bumped with their accomodation.

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2016/03/13/cuba-attracts-1m-tourists-so-far-2016

[oliverdst]

I was thinking about that few days ago. In the long term chances are I will start going to other cities than Havana. Maybe these cities will still be the "old" Cuba.

[Habana Mike]

Bet they hit 5M this year, especially once the US airlines start direct commercial operations....

Glad I made it there pre-post embargo

[Ryan]

Speaking to somebody in Cuban tourism last year, they are expecting tourism numbers to level off at 10m per year when everything settles down. Up from just over 3 million last year.

The current problem is, since US tourism is still illegal, i.e. only cultural tours etc allowed, it is basically illegal for US tourists to have a beach holiday in Cuba, thus Havana has become a bit of a bottleneck.

When the embargo is dropped, and the beach resorts are built, plus more hotels in Havana, things should level off.

Hopefully at that point, Cuba will still be safer than Jamaica, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Haiti and Mexico, but who knows.

The very first US company (and I'm not blaming the US), in producing a tractor that is illegal in most of the rest of the world is possibly an indicator of what unregulated capitalism might do to Cuba.

It's the stuff of revolutions.