Cuba welcomed its 2 millionth tourist this year on Friday with a salsa band, strong mojitos and word that the country expects to set a record this year for foreign visitors despite three hurricanes and a global economic crisis.
Authorities hung a red-and-white banner reading “welcome visitor” in five languages just outside the customs area as Air Canada Flight 370 from Toronto touched down at Havana Airport.
Cuba didn’t single out a visitor No. 2 million, rather symbolically marked the flight’s arrival along with similar celebrations at international airports in the eastern city of Santiago and in Varadero, the famous beach resort northeast of Havana.
Alexis Trujillo, first vice minister of tourism, said Cuba had surpassed 2 million annual foreign visitors every year since 2004.
But Friday was the earliest the country had ever reached the mark, he said, leading Cuba to predict it would pass its 2005 record of 2.3 million visitors.
Trujillo said tourism is up 10.7 percent compared with last year, despite hurricanes Gustav, Ike and Paloma, which destroyed nearly half a million homes and did more than US$10 billion in damage when they roared through the island in recent weeks.
Washington’s trade embargo prohibits most Americans from coming to Cuba.
But Canada, Britain, Spain and Italy rank as the island’s top sources of visitors.
Foreign tourists to Cuba topped 2.3 million in 2005 but fell in 2006 and slipped again to 2.1 million last year — dealing a financial blow to a nation that relies on tourism for much of its hard-currency revenue. The industry brought in US$2.2 billion last year.
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