Cuba’s Tourism Won’t Feel the Heat of Power Outages

The Cuban travel industry won’t be affected by the severe blackouts that have been sweeping the island nation due to a breakdown of the national power grid.

Cuba’s Tourism Vice Minister Oscar Gonzalez told the local press that the country’s hotels and resorts are equipped with their own power generators as part of an investment process aimed at keeping lodgings running amid the outages.

“Right now, we have closed 14,000 rooms all across the island for the usual remodeling process these accommodations are supposed to undergo during the off-peak travel season,” Mr. Gonzalez explained.

Last week, Cuban authorities announced the implementation of a power saving and regulation plan in an effort to offset the fallout of a serious electrical problem that has indefinitely hamstrung the Antonio Guiteras Power Plan, responsible of 15 percent of the country’s generation needs.

The blackout plan, coupled with the lockdown of 118 companies and factories, a half-hour cutback of the daily working time and the extension of the daylight saving time through the summer of 2005 are some of the emergency actions taken by the Cuban government.

With over $2 billion worth of revenues every year, tourism has become Cuba’s economic powerhouse, accounting for 41 percent of the Gross Domestic Product.