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How Cuba makes and spends its money

Colorful Cuba
Cuba's GDP
One country, two currencies
One country, two currencies
Small salaries, secretive statistics
Small salaries, secretive statistics
Top-notch healthcare
Education for all
Unemployment in paradise
Public vs private
Tourism
Oil and sugar
Working the land
Food security
Cuba's top imports
Cuba's top exports
Cuba's top exports
US sanctions
Smoke and mirrors
Relationship with Venezuela
State budget breakdown
Baseball and ballet
Heavy weapons
Bills for Guantánamo Bay
Settling its debts
Death of a General
11 of 26
Daniela Constantinescu/Shutterstock

Tourism

Before the pandemic pressed pause on international travel, the tourism industry was one of Cuba's biggest sources of income, bringing in $3.3 billion in 2018 alone.

In 2015, the US eased the restrictions that had previously made Cuba the only country in the world where Americans needed permission to travel, a policy introduced after the Cuban Revolution in 1959.

This lifting has meant that an estimated 1.5 million more tourists can enter the Caribbean island every year, although previous stats suggest that somewhere between 20,000 to 30,000 Americans illegally entered the country annually beforehand.

The Cuban government has hinted this figure was actually higher, sitting closer to 60,000. 

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Alice Cattley

31 July 2022

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