LatinNews Daily - 25 September 2023

* Cuba’s national statistics institute (ONEI) has released new figures which show that the country received 1.67m international tourists in the first eight months of 2023, up 171.6% on the same period in 2022. However, this is still far short of the levels received prior to the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic when Cuba was receiving between 4m and 5m tourists per year, making tourism one of the mainstays of the economy. A total of 1.614m tourists visited Cuba in 2022. According to ONEI the main source countries are Canada (which accounted for 675,996 of the international tourists in the first eight months of 2023, up 226.5% on the same period in 2022), the US (111,100, up 182.5%), and Russia (106,529, up 276.8%). In May Cuba’s tourism minister, Juan Carlos García, said that the government had the target of 3.5m foreign tourists visiting in 2023; the latest figures suggest that the country is not on course to meet this target.