CubaPLUS Magazine

Cuba is preparing to recover after the Covid-19 with measures in numerous sectors of national life, among which the tourism sector, fundamental for the country's economy.An extraordinary session of the Council of Ministers, led by President of the Republic Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, and by Prime Minister, Manuel Moreno Cruz, examined the steps that will be taken in the island to return to normality, also considered previously at a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba, chaired by its first secretary, Army General Raúl Castro.The strategy to face the pandemic, explained the Head of State, consists of two stages, the first of which includes three phases and is precisely the post-covid-19 recovery phase.The measures designed to cover several areas, including health, tourism, labor and tax issues, foreign and domestic trade, transport, education, sport and culture.The Prime Minister specified there will be no abrupt opening in the first phase, although several activities are already restarting and indicated that services will gradually be expanded and made more flexible at each of the phases conceived.For the restart of international tourism, a PCR test is expected to be applied to each visitor and their temperature will be taken, while clinical-epidemiological surveillance will be established in hotel facilities by a team of specialists.In the first phase, said Marrero Cruz, only national tourism will open, and in a second stage, international tourism will begin gradually, depending on demand, and only in the northern and southern keys of the Cuban archipelago.In these facilities, occupancy will be limited and also the capacity in gastronomic and recreational services, he pointed out and pointed out that car rental and excursions, at first, will be limited to the interior of the keys.During summer, pools will open to 30% of their capacity, with a hygiene protocol, and access to the beaches will be under the control of local governments and the forces of the Ministry of the Interior, in order to guarantee compliance with measures and discipline.As for transport, in the first phase restrictions of entry and exit from the country are maintained, and urban, inter-municipal and rural public transport, both state and private, are restored with limitations, but not regular routes between provinces, which will be restored in the second phase.Regarding foreign trade, import licenses are made more flexible in certain nomenclatures and the reactivation of exports and foreign investment is encouraged, from the very initial phase of recovery.The physical distance and mandatory use of masks is maintained in all activities of the first phase, and in the second, its use is limited to public places where there is a concentration of people.Speaking at the meeting, the Cuban president stressed that "we have worked intensively in order to save lives and the results lead us to glimpse that we are in a moment close to recovery."