Cuba tourism plunges 60% in first half of 2026

Cuba received 387,591 international visitors in the first six months of 2026, a 60.7% drop from the same period a year earlier and the lowest level since the COVID‑19 pandemic. June alone saw just 28,100 arrivals. The sharp decline is linked to U.S. sanctions that halted fuel supplies and grounded international flights in January, prompting the exit of major foreign hotel operators that accounted for 46% of the island’s rooms, including Spain’s Meliá, Iberostar and Barceló, Canada’s Blue Diamond, Indonesia’s Archipiélago International and Turkey’s ATG.

Visitors from Canada fell 70.3% to 126,937, while arrivals from the United States and Russia dropped 53.8% and 66.8% respectively. Other source markets such as Mexico, Argentina and China also saw declines of over 30%. Visits by the Cuban diaspora fell 38.2% to 74,068. The tourism sector, once a top source of foreign‑exchange with 4.6 million visitors in 2018, is now far short of the government’s 2.6 million target for 2026.