Cuban Tourist Arrivals Up 16 Per Cent In 1st Half

Cuban Tourist Arrivals Up 16 Per Cent In 1st Half

HAVANA, July 31 (BERNAMA-NNN-Xinhua) -- Cuba received 1,923,326 tourists
between Jan 1 and Jun 30 in 2015, up 15.9 percent over the same period
in 2014, an official report said.

Cuba's National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI) announced on
Thursday that 218,635 tourists visited the Caribbean island in June
alone. This represents a 20.6-percent increase from the same month last
year.

The United Kingdom, France and Italy are still the main sources of
foreign visitors in the first quarter, and all of them have witnessed a
growth of between 10 percent and 28 percent in the number of tourists to
the island country.

Three Latin American countries -- Argentina, Venezuela and Mexico --
trailed behind the above European states. Among them, Venezuela has seen
the biggest increase, or 61.5 percent, in the number of visitors in the
first half of 2015.

The notable increase in tourists visiting Cuba came after the historic
diplomatic rapprochement between Cuba and the United States, which was
announced in December 2014.

Even though the ONEI did not mention the number of U.S. holidaymakers,
they are likely to increase as U.S. President Barack Obama loosened
travel restrictions in January, which, as part of a U.S. blockade
policy, are still in force for U.S. citizens who want to visit Cuba.

Tourism is the Caribbean island's second source of foreign exchange
earners, which stood at more than 1.8 billion U.S. dollars.

In 2014, Cuba received a record three million tourists, an increase of
5.5 percent over 2013.

Source: BERNAMA - Cuban Tourist Arrivals Up 16 Per Cent In 1st Half -
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v8/bm/wn/newsworld.php?id=1157109