HAVANA (AP) \u2014 Cuba\u2019s government said it is open to offering the management of its hotels to Cuban investors, both residents and those living abroad, following decisions by Spanish hotel chain Melia and other companies to withdraw or limit their operations on the island.<\/p>\n
Meli\u00e1 announced May 26 that it will cease operations at 15 of the 34 hotels it manages in Cuba after the U.S. announced new sanctions while upholding an energy embargo<\/a> that has deepened an economic crisis on the island. Cuba\u2019s government has blamed the U.S. blockade<\/a> for prolonged blackouts, water shortages, supply problems, deficiencies in the healthcare system and disruptions in all aspects of daily life.<\/p>\n The company\u2019s decision follows similar moves by hotel chains including Canadian-owned Royalton and Spain\u2019s Iberostar to limit or suspend operations in Cuba, dealing blows to the vital tourism sector<\/a> that has plummeted since its 2018 peak.<\/p>\n President Miguel D\u00edaz-Canel announced the new management policy in an interview with a Spanish journalist that was broadcast Friday on the official presidential channel.<\/p>\n \u201cThere will be hotels that we will have to operate more with Cuban management than with shared management with foreign entities,\u201d D\u00edaz-Canel said. \u201cWe are proposing different business models. We are open to Cubans who want to invest and manage hotels,\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cWe have also offered these business opportunities to Cubans residing abroad,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Melia\u2019s decision came weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump<\/a> signed an executive order expanding sanctions against the island. Most of the sanctions targeted Grupo de Administraci\u00f3n Empresarial S.A.<\/a>, a business conglomerate operated by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, with the assertion it was a threat to U.S. national security.<\/p>\n The order also freezes the assets of other foreign companies, seizes accounts in the United States and prohibits travel by shareholders, investors and employees, virtually eliminating activity in the U.S. financial system.<\/p>\n GAESA, a Cuban conglomerate created in the 1990s, owns a wide range of businesses from car rentals and retail stores to transportation companies. The company is Meli\u00e1\u2019s partner in hotel management through one of its subsidiaries, Gaviota.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n Sign up for Morning Wire: Meli\u00e1 is one of Cuba\u2019s most important partners in the tourism sector, operating some 14,000 rooms until its partial withdrawal.<\/p>\n Tourism in Cuba, which reached a peak of 4.3 million visitors in 2019, saw a significant drop in the number of tourists arriving in the first quarter of this year, 48% lower than in the same period in 2025.<\/p>\n Only 298,000 tourists arrived in Cuba during January, February and March compared to 573,300 international visitors during the same period last year, according to government data.<\/p>\n In the interview, D\u00edaz-Canel said it was \u201ccynical\u201d for Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to promote a narrative that Cuba\u2019s government is ineffectual while intensifying an already harsh embargo.<\/p>\n The U.S. moves could be aimed at strangling Cuba to \u201cprovoke a social explosion that would give (Trump) a pretext for humanitarian aid to intervene in the country,\u201d D\u00edaz-Canel said.<\/p>\n Or they could be intended to \u201cpursue a coercive dialogue with Cuba, employing maximum pressure to economically occupy the country.\u201d Or they could be a prelude to a military intervention, he said.<\/p>\n While U.S. and Cuban officials held talks earlier this year<\/a>, tensions have risen. In late May, former President Ra\u00fal Castro was charged<\/a> in a U.S. indictment for his alleged role in the 1996 downing of two civilian aircraft operated by Miami-based exiles in Cuban waters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HAVANA (AP) \u2014 Cuba\u2019s government said it is open to offering the management of its hotels to Cuban…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[525,17,21892,30873,2104,29968,162,2039,592,5855,1803,3772,30871,30869,12396,30872,29961,594,30870,218],"class_list":["post-77549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-business","tag-canada","tag-central-america","tag-corporate-management","tag-cuba","tag-cuba-government","tag-donald-trump","tag-economic-policy","tag-general-news","tag-government-policy","tag-international-news","tag-latin-america","tag-marco-rubio","tag-miguel-diaz-canel","tag-military-and-defense","tag-raul-castro","tag-sanctions-and-embargoes","tag-united-states-government","tag-water-shortages","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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