MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Record tourist numbers and income in Cuba

A record two million foreign tourists visited Cuba last year (15% increase over 2003) confirming the leisure industry as the Communist nation's most important earner of hard currency according to official figures released Monday.

The two billion US dollars spent by holiday goers is double the estimated remittances by Cubans living abroad, the country's second source of income.

Cuba hosted a record 2,048,572 tourists last year compared to 1.9 million in 2003. Upgrading of the island's tourist facilities and a concerted marketing effort were among the factors that combined for a record year tourism authorities said in Havana.

Tourism Ministry statistics indicate the number of visitors to Cuba has increased six times since 1990 and revenue eight times.

Tourism accounted for 41% of the monies flowing into Cuba last year and employed some 200,000 people, 9% of the country's workforce.

Canada emerged as the leading source of tourists for Cuba with 40% of the total which also includes Italy, Britain, Spain, Germany and France, Nordic countries, Netherlands, Argentina and Chile.

In fifteen years Cuba has moved from 23rd to eighth in the rankings of top tourist destinations in the Americas and Caribbean, and the government expects the number of visitors to reach 2.3 million in 2005.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and Moscow abundant aid the eleven million Cubans have been forced to face hard times, but despite the 43-year-old U.S. trade embargo, modest economic recovery has been achieved over the past couple years with the help of Canadian, European and Latin American investments, especially in tourism.

Remittances from Cubans abroad accounts for a billion US dollars far more than the country's main export commodity, sugar.

Last July, U.S. President George W. Bush said the Cuban government has turned the island "into a major destination for sex tourism." He cited a study by Johns Hopkins University which found that Cuba has "replaced Southeast Asia as a destination for paedophiles and sex tourists." "As restrictions on travel to Cuba were eased during the 1990s," Bush said, "the study found an influx of American and Canadian tourists contributed to a sharp increase in child prostitution in Cuba".

Cuban president Fidel Castro vigorously rejected the charge.

He recalled that his government prohibited "red-light districts" and "educated and found jobs" for around 100,000 women previously engaged in prostitution.

With regard to Bush's accusations of children being sexually exploited, Castro countered that education and protection of childhood are priorities of the revolution