Trump's sanctions are killing tourism in Cuba

The Trump administration's decision to cut off Cuba's foreign oil supplies is hitting the island's tourism industry hard. The industry is one of the main sources of income for the Cuban government, which is facing a deep economic crisis and increasing pressure to survive.

In the second week of Debbie Sutherland's vacation in Cuba last month, worrying signs of trouble began to emerge.

Gasoline was being rationed, many excursions were canceled, and all the shops in a shopping mall near the hotel were closed.

The hotel where she was staying, on Cayo Las Brujas, part of a small chain of islands north of central Cuba, had reserved a block of rooms for employees who were stranded. That part of the hotel was completely dark: only the tourists had electricity.

Cuba has long relied on tourism - and especially Canadian visitors seeking sun during the winter - as one of the mainstays of its struggling economy.

"The Cuban people love Canadians very much," said Sutherland, 64, a behavioral therapist from Ontario. "They said, 'You know, we would die without Canada.'"

But travel restrictions imposed by US President Donald Trump's administration and efforts to block Cuba's supply of oil from abroad have hit the tourism industry - which was already weakened by the Covid-19 pandemic - hard, deepening the economic crisis that threatens the government's survival.

Like many other tourists, Sutherland's vacation was cut short earlier last month as the country's severe energy crisis began to cripple tourism.

The Cuban government has announced that it is running out of fuel for its planes and power outages are becoming more frequent. As a result, Russian and Canadian airlines have suspended flights to Cuba, a development that threatens the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people who depend on tourism.

Canadians, a pillar of tourism for Cuba

Airlines sent empty planes to the island only to pick up thousands of tourists and return them to their homes. It was a clear indication of the volatile situation in Cuba, as the Trump administration's policies were creating an increasingly desperate situation for the country and its people. On the way to the airport, Sutherland said he saw many abandoned trucks, cars and motorcycles, apparently because they had run out of fuel.

In an effort to weaken and overthrow Cuba’s 67-year-old communist government, the Trump administration has targeted the country’s main sources of foreign currency revenue — money coming in from abroad, such as dollars or euros, that is essential to the Cuban economy. These sources include tourism, which Cuba uses to generate revenue from foreign visitors, but also medical missions that Cuba sends to other countries. In these programs, Cuban doctors work abroad, and the host countries pay the Cuban government for their services.

Even before Trump's executive order in January, which threatened to impose tariffs on countries that supply Cuba with oil, his administration had begun to weaken the country's tourism industry.

Trump restricted Americans from traveling to Cuba, staying in state-owned hotels, or going there on cruise ships. The decision to add Cuba to the list of state sponsors of terrorism also had consequences for European tourists: those visiting Cuba lost the right to enter the United States without a visa.

According to Paolo Spadoni, a professor of social sciences at Augusta University in Georgia, who recently published a book on the Cuban tourism industry, Cuba had only 1.8 million international visitors last year, down from 4.7 million in 2018.

Although their numbers have declined, Canadians remain a mainstay of tourism in Cuba, accounting for about 40 percent of foreign visitors. Cuba has invested heavily in attracting them, as Canadians can enter the country visa-free, enjoy winter vacations in sunny places, and often return.

However, as international media reports of widespread power outages, the spread of mosquito-borne diseases, and large piles of garbage on the streets, many tourists from Europe and Canada are choosing other destinations. Some tour operators have even dropped Cuba from their offers.

According to Spadoni, even Cubans living in the United States are staying away.

As a result, Cuba's tourism industry is expected to face a very difficult year, comparable only to the pandemic period, when travel around the world almost came to a standstill.

Just a few years ago, Cuba experienced a brief tourism boom following President Barack Obama's decision in 2014 to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba.

He also eased restrictions on American travel to the island and even allowed cruise ships to visit. Cuba had long been a forbidden destination for Americans, so the number of visitors from the United States increased significantly.

However, this period of liberalization was short-lived. During his first term, Trump reinstated stricter restrictions. As a result, the number of Americans visiting Cuba fell from 638 in 2018 to just 110 in 2025, according to Cuban government statistics.

Even though tourist numbers were falling, Cuba continued to invest heavily in tourism, spending billions of dollars building new hotels.

From 2014 to 2025, the government added about 22 new hotel rooms and built about 70 new hotels, Spadoni said. Cuba currently has about 85 hotel rooms nationwide, but their occupancy rate is only about 20 percent.

State-owned hotels in Cuba are managed by the company Gaviota, part of the military-run economic conglomerate GAESA, which controls most of the Cuban economy. This means that the best hotels and most valuable properties are in the hands of military officials.

“A common misconception is: how can Cuba build so many hotels when the occupancy rate is so low?” Spadoni said. “What many people don’t understand is that for the Cuban military these are more real estate investments than tourism projects.”

According to him, military officials may be thinking long-term, seeking to have control over the most valuable properties in case the communist government one day transitions to a democratic system.

Some new luxury hotels, like the iconic Torre K hotel in Havana, are mostly empty.

Hotel failure

Over the past 15 years, the Cuban government has invested about $24 billion in hotel construction, according to Emilio Morales, a former marketing officer for the Cuban trading company Cimex, who now lives in Miami and studies Cuba's tourism industry. Morales is also known as a harsh critic of the Cuban government's economic policies.

According to him, a large part of these investments has not yielded the expected results.

“There were a lot of new hotels, but within two or three and a half years, many of them closed or started to deteriorate,” Morales said. “The problem is that the government did not invest in other sectors that support tourism, such as energy infrastructure or the electricity supply network. Without these foundations, tourism cannot function normally.”

Meanwhile, in public statements, Cuban officials have accused the Trump administration of deliberately trying to push the country toward economic collapse.

“What does it mean to prevent even a single gas station from reaching a country?” Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said recently. “This means directly affecting the transportation of food, its production, public transportation, the functioning of hospitals, various institutions, schools, economic production and, of course, tourism.”

He stressed that, despite the difficulties, the Cuban government has no intention of giving up.

"Surrender is not an option," he declared.

Last month, the Cuban government made an unexpected decision: it closed dozens of hotels and transferred tourists to other structures to concentrate visitors in fewer facilities and save electricity.

Some airlines have resumed flights to Cuba, but have been forced to make additional stops in the Dominican Republic to refuel. At the same time, several countries have begun warning their citizens about the dangers of traveling to Cuba.

Air Canada announced that it has decided to suspend flights to the island, as additional refueling stops would disrupt flight schedules and create major operational difficulties.

“Beyond that, the ongoing fuel supply problems in Cuba, combined with the instability of the electrical grid, create broader consequences for travelers,” said Christophe Hennebelle, a spokesman for Air Canada. At the time, the company had about 3.000 customers in Cuba who had purchased vacation packages.

He added that the situation in the country was becoming increasingly difficult.

"Basic needs, such as food and medical services, are becoming increasingly scarce," he said. "We do not want to jeopardize the health, safety and well-being of our passengers."

The impact of the crisis is also being felt by tour operators. Lorne Berkun, an 80-year-old from Vancouver who organizes tours to Cuba, said he has only received one request from a client this year.

In previous years, he had usually received at least 15 booking requests during this period.

"Under these conditions there is no way I can take anyone to Cuba right now," he said.

Other tour operators are also facing major difficulties. Lucy Davies, a British tour operator specializing in cycling tours, said her business had virtually ground to a halt as countries like Canada raised their travel advisories.

“Almost all of our customers have canceled their reservations,” she said. “When a government recommends that citizens not travel to a country unless absolutely necessary, travel insurance no longer covers tourists going to that destination.”

She added that she hopes the situation will improve soon.

"We very much hope that Cuba and the United States will find a solution soon."  and before the country faces a complete collapse."

Meanwhile, many tourists already in Cuba experienced unexpected situations. Drew Garneau, 42, from Nova Scotia, Canada, had planned to spend his vacation on Cayo Cruz, a resort island off the coast of Cuba, from February 4 to 18.

Five days into the trip, he had just finished performing a Bon Jovi song during a karaoke night at the hotel when a hotel employee approached him in the hallway.

"He took me aside and said, 'Hey, you two need to pack your bags. You're leaving at 6 a.m.,'" Garneau recalls.

Later he learned that airlines were sending planes to pick up tourists and return them to their countries.

"I've never been kicked out of a place like this before," he said.