Cuba welcomed a record four million tourists in 2016, up 13 percent over last year, with much of the increase thanks to a crush of visitors from the US and Europe, officials said on Saturday. Havana's Ministry of Tourism said in a statement published in the Granma official newspaper that the island set a record for international visitors this year, exceeding projections by some six percent. Tourism is the number two source of revenue on the cash-strapped island, second only to the export of doctors and other medical services. Canada remains the leading emitter of tourists to the island and other major countries besides the USA are Germany, France, Italy, Britain and Spain. Tourism is the second largest source of income in Cuba after the commercialization of professional services abroad. In the first half of 2016, Cuba received revenues of 1.2 billion dollars from tourism, representing a growth of 15 percent over the same period of 2015, according to the latest data released by Onei. At present, Cuba has 65,000 hotel rooms and more than 17,000 rooms in private homes that rent. To cope with the growth of tourist arrivals, the Cuban Government plans to build 108,000 new rooms by 2030. Officials in Havana say the surge in US visitors is a result of the restored relations with the United – a thaw first announced by US President Barack Obama and Cuba›s President Raul Castro almost exactly two years ago. Although a decades-old US economic embargo remains in place, Obama has chipped away at many trade and travel restrictions, easing access to the communist island for many Americans. The first US cruise ship to come to Cuba in more than 50 years docked in Havana in May. Regular flights between the two countries have resumed. US firms like Airbnb and Netflix now operate in Cuba, and hotel group Starwood opened a Sheraton in Havana in June. Nearly 137,000 Americans came to Cuba in the first half of 2016, an 80 percent surge from the same period in 2015. — Agencies
