The once-vibrant tourism industry of Cuba is in a state of severe collapse, battered by relentless nationwide blackouts, deepening economic hardship, and widespread public discontent. As the island nation struggles with its worst energy crisis in decades, projections for 2025 paint a grim picture, suggesting that the coming year will be even more challenging than the already disastrous preceding period. This confluence of crises is not only crippling the island’s primary source of foreign currency but also fueling an exodus of its citizens and sparking increasingly desperate protests.
The Grid Fails, The Tourists Flee
For millions of Cubans, the pervasive blackouts have become a grim daily reality, with outages often lasting 18 to 20 hours. This persistent lack of electricity, stemming from an antiquated and underfunded power grid coupled with critical fuel shortages, directly impacts the nation’s ability to host visitors. While the Cuban government assures tourists that hotels are equipped with generators and that their experience will remain unaffected, the reality on the ground tells a different story. Many hotels, particularly those catering to budget-conscious travelers, lack reliable backup power, leading to compromised services, uncomfortable conditions, and a deteriorating overall experience.
This unreliability is a significant deterrent. Tourists are increasingly choosing alternative Caribbean destinations that offer stable infrastructure and predictable services. Official figures reflect this exodus: international tourism to Cuba fell by a staggering 25% in the first six months of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. Projections for 2025 now anticipate around 2.6 million visitors, a stark decline from the nearly 4.7 million who visited in 2018 and significantly short of the 3.2 million target set for 2024. The island is becoming “unique for all the wrong reasons, and thus more unattractive as a tourist destination,” notes economist Paolo Spadoni.
A Nation’s Discontent Fuels the Exodus
The constant blackouts, coupled with acute shortages of food, medicine, and basic goods, have ignited public frustration and led to sporadic protests across the island. In September 2025 alone, residents in towns like Gibara and neighborhoods in Havana took to the streets, banging pots and pans and chanting slogans against the government and its handling of the crisis. These demonstrations, though often met with swift repression and arrests, are symptomatic of a deeper, simmering discontent.
The government’s response has largely focused on maintaining order and attributing the crises to external factors, such as U.S. sanctions, while failing to address the systemic failures in infrastructure and economic management. This pervasive sense of crisis has accelerated emigration, with over a million Cubans leaving the island since 2020, draining the nation of its youth and a crucial segment of its potential workforce. This outflow represents not only a demographic crisis but also a loss of human capital that could otherwise drive recovery and innovation.
Economic Quicksand
The collapse of the tourism sector exacerbates an already dire economic situation. Tourism has historically been a cornerstone of Cuba’s economy, second only to professional services and remittances, providing vital foreign exchange. Its current nosedive, combined with dwindling remittances and the decline of other key sectors like sugar production, has plunged the island into a profound economic crisis comparable to the “special period” of the 1990s.
Official projections for GDP growth in 2025 hover around a meager 1%, a figure heavily reliant on an improbable recovery in tourism and other sectors facing significant headwinds. The nation’s infrastructure is decaying, foreign investment is hampered by sanctions and debt, and the government’s strategy often appears to prioritize tourism development over essential public services. This has created a paradox of fewer visitors but a purported focus on higher-value tourism experiences, a narrative that struggles to hold under the weight of widespread service failures.
The View from Miami and Beyond
From Miami and other global centers, the news emerging from Cuba paints a consistent picture of a nation in deep distress. Editorial analyses, like those frequently published in the Miami Herald, highlight the interconnected nature of the crises, pointing to decades of mismanagement, neglected infrastructure, and the impact of U.S. policies as critical factors. The resurgence of restrictive U.S. policies, including the potential re-designation of Cuba as a State Sponsor of Terrorism, further complicates the island’s ability to attract investment and visitors.
International markets that were once reliable sources of tourists, such as Canada and Russia, have seen significant drops in arrivals, with Canadian travel agencies removing numerous Cuban hotels from their offerings. The broader geopolitical landscape, including shifts in alliances and global economic pressures, adds another layer of complexity to Cuba’s precarious situation. The island finds itself increasingly isolated, struggling to secure vital resources and maintain a competitive edge in the global tourism market.
How Much Worse Can It Get?
The current trajectory suggests that the situation for Cuba’s tourism sector, and indeed for the nation’s economy, is unlikely to improve in the short term without fundamental systemic changes. The aging energy infrastructure, coupled with a lack of investment and a decline in critical fuel imports, means that the cycle of blackouts is likely to continue. This, in turn, will further erode confidence among potential visitors and exacerbate the economic hardships faced by the population.
The government’s strategy of prioritizing tourism infrastructure while essential services falter has been widely criticized by economists as unsustainable and short-sighted. With fewer tourists and dwindling revenue, the capacity to invest in the very infrastructure needed to attract them diminishes further, creating a vicious cycle. The current economic crisis is often described as comparable to, or even worse than, the “special period,” with few immediate avenues for relief or substantial improvement.
Conclusion
Cuba stands at a critical juncture. The ongoing energy crisis, marked by widespread blackouts, has not only plunged the island into literal darkness but has also extinguished much of the hope for a robust tourism recovery in 2025. The interwoven threads of economic collapse, public unrest, and a failing infrastructure create a bleak outlook, transforming the island into a destination increasingly defined by its struggles rather than its charms. Without a radical shift in policy, investment, and governance, the collapse of Cuba’s tourism sector portends a future of continued hardship, deeper economic stagnation, and persistent instability for its people. The news and editorial outlooks, particularly from places like Miami, underscore the urgency and severity of the situation, questioning how much worse it can possibly get before a significant change occurs.
