By Rosemary
Just before noon in Havana, a small yellow bus pulls up and a handful of tourists spill onto the sidewalk, phones raised as they hurry toward a row of gleaming vintage cars. Under the shade of a beach almond tree nearby, several drivers spring to their feet, hopeful that the day’s first customers have finally arrived.
The moment passes quickly. The visitors snap a few selfies in front of brightly painted classics — a 1950 Pontiac, a 1960 Buick, a bubblegum-pink Ford — then drift away without booking a ride.
“This is grim,” said Reymundo Aldama, who drives a 1957 convertible Ford Fairlane. “We’re waiting for them to come, we’re waiting for work.”
Scenes like this have become common across Havana as tourism in Cuba continues to plunge at a moment when the island can least afford it. Visitor numbers have fallen by nearly 70% since 2018, reversing nearly two decades of steady growth that once fueled jobs, small businesses and a crucial flow of foreign currency into the country.
The downturn began with the COVID-19 pandemic and was worsened by prolonged power outages and tighter U.S. sanctions. Now, tourism workers face another wave of uncertainty as Cuba braces for what economists warn could become a severe economic crisis following disruptions to oil shipments from Venezuela after a U.S. military strike and the arrest of Venezuela’s president. Adding to the strain, Mexico announced Tuesday that it would temporarily suspend its own oil shipments to Cuba.
For many Cubans who depend on tourism, the impact is already stark. Rosbel Figueredo Ricardo, 30, sells “chivirico,” a popular street snack made of fried flour chips dusted with sugar. Not long ago, he would load 150 small bags onto a plastic tray balanced on his shoulder and sell out by midafternoon.
Today, he prepares just 50 bags a day. He works from dawn until nightfall and sometimes does not sell a single one.
“I’m a mid-level industrial mechanical technician, and look at me here,” Figueredo said, gesturing at his tray.
With a partner and three children, and a fourth on the way, he worries constantly about making ends meet. On one recent afternoon, after finding no tourists along Havana’s famous seawall, he walked toward the Spanish embassy, hoping that some of the dozens of Cubans lining up daily to apply for visas to leave the country might buy a snack.
“This is our day-to-day,” he said. “So we can eat.”
For decades, tourism generated up to $3 billion annually for Cuba, filling restaurants, crowding the Malecón and sustaining hundreds of small private businesses such as guesthouses and cafes. Today, the seawall is mostly occupied by local couples or fishermen casting lines in hopes of catching dinner.
Seaside restaurants sit nearly empty, tablecloths flapping in the breeze as employees clutch menus and scan the horizon for customers who never arrive.
From January through November 2025, about 1.6 million tourists visited Cuba, a steep decline from 4.8 million in 2018 and 4.2 million in 2019, before the pandemic. Many Cubans say rising tensions with the United States, chronic water and power cuts, and mounting garbage in popular districts have scared off would-be visitors.
The decline is especially painful because U.S. sanctions stripped Cuba of nearly $8 billion in revenue between March 2024 and February 2025, according to government figures — a loss nearly 50% higher than during the previous period.
On a recent afternoon, only three passengers boarded a double-decker sightseeing bus driven by Gaspar Biart, a veteran driver with 16 years on the job. He remembers when buses were packed.
“There’s been a huge change,” Biart said. “We can’t even breathe.”
At the height of the boom, eight double-decker buses made three daily circuits through Havana. Now, only four operate, and most depart nearly empty. “What we’re missing are customers,” he said. “Tourism is a driving force for a country’s economy.”
The same is true along the rows of classic cars once surrounded by lines of eager visitors. Demand was so strong that tourists often took whichever car was available. Aldama recalled working until late evening to keep up.
Now, he is lucky to find one or two customers a day. He blames the sharp downturn on U.S. policy, particularly the 2019 decision to ban cruise ships from visiting Cuba, once a major source of visitors.
“That caused a brutal drop,” he said, adding that conditions have worsened further over the past six months. He has slashed his prices from $50 per tour to $25, sometimes even $20 if customers bargain.
“The day we run out of fuel, we’ll stop driving and look for another job,” Aldama said. “There’s no other choice.”
Not all visitors are deterred. On a sunny afternoon, Russian tourist Vincent Seigi sat on a wooden bench facing the deep blue sea and Havana’s centuries-old Morro Castle, cracking open coconuts with friends. He had been in Cuba for just two days.
“I expected it to be a little chaotic, not very tourist-friendly because of the economic situation,” he said. “It feels like time is a bit stopped here.”
Seigi said blackouts and trash did not worry him as much as the lack of mobile connectivity. He also said Cuba’s situation reminded him of growing pressures back home.
“Politics is not great,” he said, referring to sanctions on Russia. He doubted that Russia or China could meaningfully replace Venezuela as an economic lifeline for Cuba, arguing that Russia is already stretched by its war in Ukraine.
He also noticed what he described as desperation among some Cubans trying to earn money from tourists, including people selling overpriced cigars with questionable stories about their origins. “So many poor people,” he said quietly.
Others see the island differently. Brazilian tourist Gloraci Passos de Carvalho, a teacher, said she had long wanted to visit Cuba to learn about its political system and education model. The economic crisis and tensions with the United States did not discourage her.
She said she was struck by the warmth of the people, the architecture and the resilience she encountered everywhere.
“It’s a lesson in surviving with less,” she said. “In Brazil we say it’s making lemonade out of lemons. I see it in a positive light.”
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