The Cuban peninsula of Varadero looks like a tropical paradise from a postcard: turquoise sea, snow-white sand and palm trees.
However, the beaches there, once packed with tourists enjoying the sand and sun, began to empty soon after Cuba announced on February 8 that it was running out of kerosene (jet fuel).
And maybe he won't be back anytime soon.
A Reuters survey of hotel and tourism companies, airlines and tourism workers on the island found that virtually every sector was suddenly paralyzed by the fuel shortage, a blow that could spell the death knell for an already struggling industry that is crucial to what remains of Cuba's shattered economy.
Leading carriers from Canada, which receives the largest number of visitors to Cuba, have announced they are suspending flights to Cuba. This will result in the cancellation of as many as 1.709 flights through April, according to analytics firm Cirium, and the disruption could reduce visitor numbers by hundreds of thousands during the peak of the northern hemisphere winter season.
Russia, the third-largest group of visitors, plans to return its tourists from Cuba in the coming days and then suspend all flights until the fuel shortage is alleviated, the aviation regulator Rosaviatsia said last week.
Global hotel giants announced last week that they were closing their hotels in Cuba or moving tourists to better-equipped facilities with higher occupancy rates.
“There is total uncertainty,” Alejandro Morejon, a 53-year-old tour guide who started working in Varadero shortly after Cuba reopened to international tourism in the 1990s, told Reuters. “Everything is starting to fall apart.”
Tourism could become the first major domino to fall as part of US pressure to force the Cuban government to give in by blocking oil shipments to the island, the British agency points out, recalling that the Donald Trump administration has declared Cuba an "exceptional threat" to US national security, cut off the flow of Venezuelan oil to the island and threatened to impose tariffs on any country that supplies fuel to Cuba.
Tourism brought the communist country $1,3 billion in foreign exchange earnings in 2024, accounting for about 10 percent of total export revenues.
Paolo Spadoni, an economist at Augusta University in Georgia who studies the Cuban economy, said the tourism sector, along with the export of Cuban doctors and remittances from abroad, are major sources of much-needed strong currency for the country.
All of these sectors are once again under attack from the Donald Trump administration, whose harsh sanctions have already prevented the Cuban tourism sector from fully recovering from the pandemic.
“A complete collapse of the Cuban tourism sector would create an unsustainable situation for the Cuban economy and threaten its survival,” Spadoni said.
Cuba attracted just 1,8 million visitors in 2025, down from 2,2 million the previous year, the lowest level in more than two decades.
Visitors say they are finding it difficult to relax, worried after Cuba announced just days earlier that it was rapidly running out of jet fuel.
Cuba's communist government announced an emergency plan in early February to protect essential services such as emergency medical care and basic education.
Top officials initially claimed that tourism and international flights would not be affected, but two days later the government informed aviation entities that the island would soon run out of fuel.
Airlines across Europe, South America, the United States, Russia and Canada have since reduced the number of flights or been forced to change routes to accommodate the fuel shortage.
At first glance, everything seems normal in Varadero, writes Reuters, adding that until late last week, souvenir shops and most restaurants were still open. Sun loungers and parasols were spread out along the beaches, while tourists, tanned by the sun, collected shells and swam in the almost perfectly clear water.
However, the British agency confirmed that at least two hotels on the peninsula have closed.
Local workers say keeping hotels and restaurants open will become increasingly difficult as the US "fuel siege" enters its third week.
Jorge Fernandes, who drives tourists around the peninsula in a pink 1950s convertible, said late last week that he only had one more day of gas. “After that, I’m going home to figure out something else to do,” the 53-year-old said.
"Trump and (Cuban President) Miguel Diaz-Canel have to reach some kind of agreement, because the only one who is suffering here is the people," Fernandez said. "The country is shutting down."
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