Mexico City, Mexico – The recent departure of major international hotel chains from Cuba has been widely reported as a response to tightening U.S. sanctions.
Some analysts, however, question whether the exodus of hotel operators, who have been a part of the island’s tourism economy for three decades, may be conveniently clearing the competitive field for any possible future American investment.
In the past weeks, hotel brands like Meliá, Iberostar, Blue Diamond and Archipelago International have pulled out of Cuba. Melia and Iberostar cited “external circumstances beyond their control” and “an adaptation to the international regulatory environment” as reasons for their departure.
Cuba’s tourism sector has been in a freefall that predates the most recent U.S. sanctions, according to Ricardo Torres, a Cuban economist and research fellow at American University.
The island received just 1.6 million international tourists in 2022 and 2.4 million in 2023 — then slipped back the following year, never recovering even half the 4.2 million visitors recorded in 2019.
ForwardKeys, a European travel analytics consultancy, ranked Cuba last among all 28 Caribbean destinations for post-pandemic tourism recovery.
Things have just gotten worse since. Visitor arrivals fell 56% in the first four months of 2026 compared to the same period in 2025, and the exit of the four major chains involved 42 of the country’s best-rated hotels – and with them, the marketing networks, brand positioning, and supply chains that made those properties internationally bookable.
Now, GAESA, the business group controlled by Cuba’s military, could be saddled with the costs of those departed chains.
“The Cuban partner – GAESA’s hotel arm, Gaviota – already weakened by the crisis and sanctions, will have to cover the fixed costs – maintenance, security, electricity – of those facilities with virtually no revenue,” Torres told Latin America Reports.
The transactional nature of Trump’s foreign policy
The Trump administration has ramped up pressure on Cuba in recent months, including imposing an almost complete blockade on oil entering the country – effectively crippling an economy that’s been struggling for years under the Cuban regime, and leaving ordinary Cubans with little food or basic resources.
Torres acknowledges that while clearing out hotel operators on the island “is not the main goal of the (Trump) administration,” it “could be a convenient byproduct.” Especially given the administration’s “primarily transactional nature.”
José Manuel González Rubines, a Cuban journalist and political analyst, noted that around a decade ago The Trump Organization was already exploring the possibility of opening golf courses and luxury hotels on the island.
Trump the businessman also registered his trademark on the island in 2008.
More recently, the mining industry provided a similar example.
After decades operating nickel and cobalt mines in Moa, Canadian mining conglomerate Sherritt International suspended its operations on the island following U.S. sanctions. Days later reports emerged that a former Trump advisor was exploring the purchase of Sherritt’s stake in Cuba, according to the Associated Press.
González Rubines believes the presence of rare-earth minerals in the area may have been a crucial factor but said, “We don’t know for sure the amount of rare-earth minerals in the area; we don’t have trustworthy information about it.”
Signs of the U.S. engaging with Cuba?
The Trump administration’s official approach to engaging with Cuba has been a mix of quiet diplomacy and economic pressure.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe recently traveled to Havana to meet with Cuban officials, and SOUTHCOM’s commander held a rare meeting with senior Cuban military officials at the perimeter of the Guantanamo Bay military base.
At the same time, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced sanctions on Cuba’s state-owned oil company CUPET as well as members of President Miguel Díaz-Canel’s family.
However, a recent meeting between Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro – Raúl Castro’s grandson – and Vic Mellor, a Trump ally and Republican congressional candidate from Rhode Island, has some members of the Cuban-American community hoping a political opening in Cuba may be closer than some think.
Mellor told Telemundo that Rodríguez Castro is “totally open” to talks with Trump and willing to “let Trump lead the way.”
Mellor clarified he travelled as a private citizen and congressional candidate, not as a U.S. government representative, and said the White House had not contacted him about the meeting.
He was nonetheless invited to return to Cuba for further conversations.
What’s to come for Cuba’s tourism sector?
“After the pandemic the tourism [in Cuba] never recovered,” a hotel executive in Cuba with over 20 years experience, told Latin America Reports. He asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal.
He said that on top of sanctions, financial insolvency and systematic mismanagement by GAESA has sunk tourism on the island.
“GAESA owes a lot of money to these chains. Many Spanish hotel advisors left the island without being paid,” he said. “There was no food; there was nothing in the hotels.” (Latin America Reports could not independently verify these claims.)
As a means to revive the industry, the Cuban government has floated the idea that Cubans living abroad could invest in the island’s hospitality sector. González Rubines dismisses the plan as “unfeasible.”
The obstacle is not capital or interest. It is the absence of legal security.
As reported in March, the Cuban government had accumulated a debt of at least 300 million euros with Spanish firms, leaving companies with no recourse on the island and forcing them to appeal to the Spanish government for help.
“Which independent authority are you going to file a complaint with?” González Rubines quipped about legal pathways for foreign businesses on the island.
Featured image credit: Iberostar Cuba Hotels & Resorts
