Re:Khasho who? One year after gruesome murder, investors emb...
by boomboomsubban on Thursday October 03, 2019 @12:38PM
(#21148912)
Cuba had 1.8 million tourists in 99, 2.4 million in 04, and 4.7 in 2017. Meanwhile, their population has risen from 11.1 million in 99 to 11.2 million in 2017. And though oil reserves were found, production has stayed roughly the same since 2004.
Re:Khasho who? One year after gruesome murder, investors emb...
by bilbo0s on Thursday October 03, 2019 @05:23PM
(#21152380)
Those are registered numbers. Tourism from the nineties until Obama, especially from the US, was completely unregistered. Not only that, but Cuba facilitated tourism scofflaws by making it policy not to stamp certain Western passports. (I was there legally, and I can tell you that even the legal visitors, did not get stamped. At least as an American they didn't. They went the extra mile to cover your tracks.)
Point being, reported tourist numbers from Cuba are completely unreliable. (Really any reported numbers from Cuba are unreliable but that's a whole other story.) They report whatever serves the government's story in Cuba. Full stop.
Re:Khasho who? One year after gruesome murder, investors emb...
by boomboomsubban on Friday October 04, 2019 @06:42AM
(#21156396)
So what government story prompted the gradual growth of reported tourists?
I looked at the data a bit more in an attempt to find sources skeptical of the reported tourists, and I couldn't find anything. I did find the reported tourism revenue though, and though it still seems like far more tourists are visiting, the expenses per person has dropped a fair amount leading to the % of GNP from tourism dropping since 98.
This would explain why the economy doesn't seem to be benefitting despite the high rise in tourism.
I can't speak to the situation of these other nations, but I've been going to Cuba for a long, long time. (Was at the University of Havana for a bit in the 90's, been visiting since.) Even during the Special Period there were tourists. Lots of them. I can tell you that there is no real "rise" in tourism.
There have been small changes in Cuban government economic policy over time, as well as changes in American policy towards Cuba. But if you ask the average Cuban on the island, I'm sure they'd tell you both of these changes in policy are precipitated more by the North Cuba Basin than they are by tourism. I generally agree with that assessment. Being that most of the movement towards these changes happened post-2004, despite the fact that there was no rise in tourism over the same period.