Cuba says three quarters of hotels shuttered
Nearly three-quarters of Cuba's hotels have been shuttered and the island's tourism sector has been brought to "almost total paralysis" by U.S. sanctions and fuel shortages, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero said on July 29.
Detailing the scale of the tourism crisis for the first time, Marrero said seven international chains, responsible for about half of all hotel rooms, had left the island.
Tourism had been Cuba's second-largest source of foreign currency earnings, employing more than 300,000 people before the crisis deepened this year.
Today, Old Havana's streets, once clogged with tourists seeking sun, salsa and stirred cocktails, are quiet.
