Recent government sources from the island have unveiled the countrys intention to build a further 24,000 hotel rooms in order to keep up with growing demand from increasing tourism to the island. With the popularity of Cuba holidays increasing rapidly every year the island has experienced a boom in tourism arrivals, with tourism figures growing every year.
In 2011 the island welcomed around 700,000 more visitors indicating a substantial growth of 7.3 per cent more travellers enjoying holidays in Cuba last year. This figure is expected to keep growing in 2012 and see further growth in the coming years. In addition to the regular tourism markets in Europe and Canada responsible for sending the largest number of tourists to the island, other source markets are emerging, with Russian and South American travellers now leading the way for growth. To cope with the expected ongoing growth the islands tourist infrastructure needs to expand considerably and it is for this reason that tourism officials have decided to start construction plans on new Cuba hotels in order to cater for the increased flow of tourists arriving to the island.
Cubas Vice Minister of Tourism, Alexis Trujillo, has confirmed that the building of these new hotel rooms is being funded by foreign and Cuban investment. He also confirmed that the island plans to increase the diversity of Cubas tourism product with the 13 new golf courses planned, all of which are in different stages of negotiation talks at the moment, as are the construction of new theme parks to spring up around the whole island.
Regarding foreign investment, Mr Trujillo explained that of the currently existing 58,000 hotel rooms in Cuba, 6000 belong to 30 companies of mixed ownership (divided ownership between Cuban capital and foreign capital) and they await further Cuba hotels to be constructed by these kind of consortia companies.
During a press conference called in the occasion of Pope Benedict XVI to Cuba, Trujillo highlighted the increase of foreign tourist arrivals to the island over the last few years, whose figures have experienced an average growth of 10.5 per cent since 1990.