The wind and the occasional coachman urging his horses on are the only sounds accompanying the sunset in Varadero, once considered the best beach in the Caribbean islands. / 14ymedio

Without water, without electricity and with very few tourists, many hotels have closed their doors and laid off thousands of workers.

By Pablo Padilla Cruz (14ymedio)

HAVANA TIMES – If there are sectors where the deep crisis currently gripping Cuba is reflected most painfully, it is precisely those that were once the backbone of its economy. Tourism, for example, which—after the suspension of flights due to the lack of kerosene—now threatens to become the same kind of corpse that the sugar harvest has already turned into.

One of the most affected places has been the island’s leading international destination, Varadero. Over the last decade, the Matanzas resort prided itself on receiving more than one million travelers annually, but that figure has dropped drastically. Today it faces a 70% decline, a number many workers in the sector never imagined they would experience.

Hotel Los Delfines, on 32nd Street in Varadero, closed. / 14ymedio

“Varadero is chaos right now,” says a worker at the Hotel Los Delfines, on 32nd Street in the city. “There’s no water in this area, the electricity goes out constantly, and because of that they decided to close the hotel and concentrate the tourists in the Club Tropical hotel.”

The closure of accommodations and the moving of visitors into other hotels has been one of the measures taken by the regime following the blocking of all fuel entering the island after the United States’ intervention in Venezuela on January 3, and Donald Trump’s subsequent threat to third countries that send oil to Cuba.

The hotel employee’s words illustrate the difficult situation facing the entire sector. “At first they would bring us to the hotel, and we would stay three days working, then they would send us home for another three days. But soon they started telling us, ‘don’t come anymore.’ So a month would go by without them calling me to work again,” he explains.

This situation has become common in many hotels, where employees are sent home without prior notice, hoping to be called back when circumstances allow.

Empty café on the main Varadero pedestrian boulevard (Matanzas). / 14ymedio

The uncertainty is palpable. This worker, who prefers not to give his name, says that job options in this context are few.

“They offered me jobs in Communal Services (garbage collection and other municipal services) or as a guard at the Matanzas cemetery, but that’s not what I studied. It’s a (very low paying) job that even the unemployed don’t want to take, and the worst part is that they present it as if it were a solution,” he says with frustration.

Maday, a clerk at a café in downtown Varadero, also recounts her experience with a mixture of resignation and concern.

“Fortunately, I can still work, but the flow of customers is getting smaller and smaller. Cubans, who used to help us on a bad day, hardly come anymore. And I have to spend 200 pesos to get to Varadero from Cardenas, and another 500 on an electric car to return home in the afternoon,” she says.

That means a daily expense of 700 pesos, which is hardly compensated by the tips she receives. Tourists, quite simply, are not enough to keep income flowing.

The Beatles Bar, in Josone Park in Varadero (Matanzas). / 14ymedio

“If you want to be ‘interrupted’ [work on specific days], the job options they offer you are at an organopónico (urban agriculture) or in Communal Services,” adds Maday, lamenting: “They offer me these positions just to fulfill the paperwork, but in reality I have no options.”

At the same time, buy-and-sell groups on social media in cities such as Matanzas and Cardenas have seen job requests multiply. Clerks, cooks, DJs and artisans are trying to carve out a place in an already saturated market, hoping to survive amid the uncertainty of the private sector.

However, the situation becomes even more complicated for workers at the craft fairs, who have historically depended on tourism to sustain their livelihood.

Raul, a visual artist who has spent nearly two decades working in handicrafts, laments the crisis affecting his sector.

“I’ve seen good times and bad over the years, but what we are experiencing now is unprecedented,” he says. “With covid-19, we knew the situation would improve someday, but now we’re facing a crisis with no short-term solution.”

Like other workers in the sector, Raul notes that Varadero’s craft fairs, which once received thousands of tourists, are now deserted.

“Varadero adapted itself to receive more than a million foreigners each year, but now not even two hundred and fifty thousand arrive. The only ones surviving are those who have tables inside the hotels,” he says.

Craft stalls of the National Fund for Cultural Assets, in Varadero. / 14ymedio

Competition among artisans has increased significantly, making it even harder to generate sales.

“When a tourist shows up, there are so many of us competing that we barely manage to make anything,” Raúl says. And to make matters worse, the National Fund for Cultural Assets, which manages the spaces for the fairs, charges fees for the use of those spaces—another burden for the already impoverished workers in the sector.

Beatriz, a Spanish tourist who has been returning to Varadero for ten years, has also witnessed the crisis battering the island.

“I knew the situation was difficult, but I didn’t think it was this bad,” she says. Bea, as the workers at the Cuatro Palmas hotel call her, considers herself almost part of the family in Varadero, since she has returned year after year.

“This beach is the best in the world, but the situation has become unsustainable. The electricity goes out far too often, and I even had to bring eggs from Spain,” she says with frustration.

Hotel Barlovento, in Varadero, also closed. / 14ymedio

Beatriz also points to a change in her relationship with Cubans.

“They no longer see me here as a foreigner, but as an ATM,” she says sadly. “It doesn’t matter what I give them, they always want more.”

The cordiality and friendly atmosphere she once felt on the island has been overshadowed by the desperation of those who depend on tourism to survive.

“I don’t know if I’ll come back next year. If I do, it will be for less time, or maybe I’ll change destinations,” she concludes, suggesting that the crisis may mark the end of her relationship with Varadero.

The city, which was once the locomotive of the Cuban economy, now lies almost empty. Buildings are half-repaired, the lack of potable water and electricity is constant, and only a few residents walk its streets, once crowded with tourists.

Hotels, private guesthouses and recreation centers remain mostly closed. The laughter of tourists has faded away, and the bustle of workers returning to their homes has become quiet.

Now the wind and the occasional coachman urging his horses on are the only sounds accompanying the sunset of what was once considered the best beach in the Caribbean islands.

Entrance to Varadero, Matanzas. / 14ymedio

First published in Spanish by 14ymedio and translated into English and posted by Havana Times.

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