Cuba’s hard-hit tourism sector is taking a different tack as Spain’s Meliá closes some hotels
Spanish hotel chain Meliá has joined a growing list of companies with longtime operations in Cuba withdrawing or scaling back their business on the island after the US announced new sanctions while maintaining an oil embargo.
Meliá will stop working at 15 of the 34 hotels he manages on the island, according to the country’s Cubadebate website, addressing a crisis in Cuba’s vital tourism sector, which has been struggling since 2019.
Wednesday’s report said Meliá’s decision was based on “the company’s sense of responsibility and external factors that have significantly affected the operation, legality and safety of these facilities.”
This decision was announced on May 26, a few weeks after US President Donald Trump signed an order to increase sanctions against the island. Most of the fines are directed at Grupo de Administración Empresarial SA (GAESA), a business organization run by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces. The US says GAESA is a threat to national security.
The executive order freezes the assets of foreign companies, seizes their accounts in the United States and prohibits the movement of their shareholders, investors and employees – virtually ending their work in the US financial system.
GAESA, a Cuban conglomerate formed in the 1990s, has a wide range of businesses, from car rentals and retail stores to transportation companies. He is Meliá’s partner in hotel management through one of its subsidiaries, Gaviota.
The latest contribution to the tourism industry
Meliá is one of Cuba’s most important partners in its important tourism sector. Until it was partially withdrawn, it operated about 14,000 rooms.
Spanish and Canadian firms are the biggest investors in Cuba’s hotel sector, said Lee Schlenker, research fellow in the Global South program of the Quincy Institute, a Washington think tank.
“Given the lack of foreign tourism, the shortage of fuel, and the big drop from the COVID … I’m sure that these companies will rethink their operations in Cuba with a big impact on the Cuban people, not just GAESA,” he said. “There are thousands of Cubans working in these hotels.”
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Several of the hotels Meliá left behind in scenic areas such as the resorts of Varadero, Cayo Santa María and Jardines del Rey “were already closed and idled due to energy problems and a drop in demand in Cuba,” according to Cubadebate.
The Cuban government has blamed the US blackout for long-term power outages, water shortages, supply problems, shortages in the health care system and disruptions to daily life.
‘It will affect us’
Those working in Cuba’s declining tourism sector lamented Meliá’s announcement.
“It will affect us, our families, and everyone involved in tourism. Our income and income depend on this,” said Erich López, a green 1950s Dodge driver who has driven for two decades to support his family.
For Carlos Luis Carbonel, a 62-year-old parking attendant who works in front of the large Meliá Cohiba hotel in Havana, the situation is “going to be dangerous.”
“This is bad for everyone: for the tour guides, for the parking attendants, for the hotel staff, for everyone,” she said.
Some major hotel chains, including Canadian-owned Royalton and Spain’s Iberostar, have limited or suspended operations in Cuba in the past week.
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 half of this year, 48 percent lower than the same period in 2025.
Only 298,000 tourists arrived in Cuba in January, February and March, compared to 573,300 international visitors during the same period last year, according to government data.
Cuba is struggling to breathe
On Wednesday, the large and iconic sign of the Royalton Paseo del Prado hotel at the entrance to Old Havana was removed, as confirmed by the Associated Press during a visit. Meanwhile, the 500-room Iberostar Selection – also known as Tower K – a modern and luxurious hotel scheduled to open in 2025, standing over 150 meters tall, remained closed for days.
Airlines including World2Fly, Air France and Iberia have canceled flights to and from Cuba.
Also on Wednesday, the Central Bank of Cuba announced that the operation of Visa and MasterCard on the island will be suspended following the termination of relations between foreign companies and FINCIMEX SA, a Cuba-based company affiliated with GAESA.
Last month, Canadian miner Sherritt International Corp. signed a non-binding agreement with Gillon Capital LLC, a family office linked to a former Trump adviser, to sell its stake in a mining business in Cuba.
In late January, Trump threatened tariffs on any country that sells or supplies oil to Cuba, as his administration pushes for changes in its political system and government. This move has deepened the crisis caused by seven decades of US sanctions.
Peter Kornbluh, a Cuba expert who works at the National Security Archive in Washington, DC, said the US indictment of former Cuban leader Raúl Castro on Wednesday could be seen as a ‘big step’ in the military invasion of the Latin American country.
When U.S. and Cuban officials held talks earlier this year, tensions ran high.
In late May, former president Raúl Castro was indicted in the US for his alleged role in the downing of two planes of Miami exiles in 1996 in Cuban waters.
