Canadian travel to Cuba on a double-digit downturn in early 2025

Cuba saw a double-digit driblet successful the fig of Canadians visiting the land federation this past winter, raising questions astir what's behind the slide.

Data from Cuba's national statistical bureau reveals that the fig of Canadians travelling determination was astatine least 30 per cent beneath past year's numbers successful January, February and March. 

Yet the downward displacement goes beyond visitors from Canada, with Cuba besides reporting a decreasing fig of tourer visits from Russia, Spain and Italy, among different countries.

The manager of the Cuban Tourism Board successful Toronto was retired of the state this week and not disposable for comment. But the country's nationalist tourism curate has precocious hinted astatine the "complex" challenges Cuba is facing.

Several home airlines and question operators corroborate they are seeing little question to the Caribbean state that drew much than one million Canadian visitors annually in the years earlier the pandemic.

"The reported diminution successful Canadian question to Cuba aligns with feedback we're proceeding from some customers and our question experts," Amra Durakovic, caput of communications for Flight Centre Canada, told CBC News via email.

Cuba watchers accidental the country's accumulating economic and societal challenges — connected afloat show for tourists who task distant from resorts, and besides successful media reports — may beryllium contributing to the diminution successful tourism.

"The world is that the state has changed importantly for the worse since the aboriginal 1990s, erstwhile Canadians began visiting the land successful ample numbers," said Ricardo Torres Pérez, a Cuban economist who pays adjacent attraction to the tourism statistic published by the state.

Problems connected display

A salient and recurring problem for Cuba has been its unreliable power grid and the effect that's having connected the state and the lives of its people.

For months, Cuba has seen repeated widespread powerfulness failures, including connected back-to-back occasions past autumn erstwhile the land was deed by successive hurricanes. There was besides a large outage successful December, and yet different successful March.

Andrés Pertierra, a Cuba expert who previously lived and studied successful Havana, was successful Cuba for 2 of those large outages past year.

He recalls the pictures shown connected the quality of darkened streets, juxtaposed against images of the lights working at hotels.

"How bash you supply an representation of a carefree lifestyle, a quick, amusive trip, erstwhile you person that?" Pertierra asked.

Flight Centre's Durakovic says travellers are paying attraction to the very nationalist problems Cuba's been having, including the periodic powerfulness outages and constricted availability of immoderate indispensable goods and services, which helium says "can understandably play a relation successful question decisions." 

Since July 2023, Ottawa has warned Canadians to "exercise a precocious grade of caution" if travelling to Cuba. The full question advisory points to shortages of food, medicine and fuel, arsenic good arsenic ongoing challenges with the powerfulness grid.

LISTEN | Cuba, powerfulness outages and challenges for Havana: 

Torres Pérez said these problems are tied to Cuba's ongoing economic crisis.

"The situation has affected the prime of services, the authorities of infrastructure and has led to predominant blackouts," helium said, noting determination are also issues astir keeping cities cleanable with "solid discarded accumulating successful the streets."

Both Torres Pérez and Pertierra also accidental that amid these struggles, Cuba is seeing much problems with transgression than it utilized to.

"While 1 could reason that the land remains comparatively harmless compared to different Latin American countries, transgression is connected the emergence — including incidents of pickpocketing," said Torres Pérez.

'I emotion the place'

But the lure of Cuba's sunny upwind and sandy beaches is strong, and for immoderate Canadians, it's a spot they'll continue to visit.

Quebec nonmigratory Michel Dubois last visited Cuba successful December and says he'll beryllium returning determination doubly this year.

"I emotion the place, that's it," said Dubois, a retired TV cameraman and editor, who worked for both CBC and Radio-Canada during his career. "I emotion the people."

Dubois says he's made friends aft making repetition trips to Cuba, and helps proviso them with hard-to-come by necessities, similar flashlights, erstwhile helium visits.

Sharon Pedley, of Brampton, Ont., intends to bash the same, erstwhile she returns to Cuba aboriginal this year.

She and her hubby volition battalion an other suitcase afloat of necessities — similar over-the-counter medicine — to bring for Cuban friends they've met done their anterior visits.

"You'll find a batch of the tourists that I cognize of, they'll bash the same," said Pedley.

The enactment that Pedley, Dubois and different like-minded tourists supply successful this mode whitethorn payment idiosyncratic Cubans, but these visitors besides supply the state with a captious root of overseas currency.

Pertierra, the Cuba analyst, notes that arsenic tourism wanes, "that volition mean little overseas currency," which is captious for the state to person successful bid to import needed goods and supplies.

A crook to China?

This past week, Reuters reported that Cuba is looking to China as a imaginable root of caller tourists.

In March, the authoritative Cuban Granma paper lauded the increasing fig of Chinese tourists heading to Cuba successful caller years — from more than 8,000 visitors successful 2022, to a reported 26,760 successful 2024.

But those numbers are acold little than the much than 500,000 Canadians who travelled to Cuba successful the archetypal 3 months of 2025 — and that's astatine a level 30 per cent beneath past year. 

Canadian question providers constituent to continued involvement from consumers, contempt what the Cuban statistic suggest.

"Although determination has been a flimsy softening successful bookings for the aboriginal portion of 2025 compared to the erstwhile year, we are besides seeing signs of stabilization successful the past month," Marie-Christine Pouliot, manager of nationalist relations for Air Transat, said via email.

Air Canada, meanwhile, told CBC News that "Cuba has been performing precise steadily for us."

Torres Pérez says Canada has agelong been Cuba's single-largest tourism market. Asked however it could perchance enactment to thrust up those numbers, helium suggested efforts could beryllium made to amended the prime of service and guarantee the hospitality assemblage has the supplies it needs to service visitors.