Cuba welcoming more Canadians this summer

While it remains a top destination for Canadians seeking a winter escape, Cuba has seen a significant jump in summer travel from Canada this year, an increase which the Cuba Tourist Board attributes to a number of factors.

Eloy Govea, the board’s director for Canada, told PAX that so far, the summer season for 2015 has seen a growth of 13 per cent in Canadian travel, keeping pace with the destination’s strong 2015 winter season. Although he said that lower prices and increased availability in summer draws many Canadians every year, the recent uptick in summer tourism marks a departure from years past.

With the recent restoration of relations between Cuba and the U.S. (which last week saw the reopening of the two countries’ respective embassies in Washington and Havana), Govea said that many Canadian travellers are under the impression that a Cuba vacation is a now-or-never prospect, a notion which has undoubtedly prompted more Canadian travellers this year.

“There’s an idea that people have to go to Cuba before the U.S. travellers arrive,” he said. “It’s definitely been a factor.”

In addition to politics, Govea said that the momentum of the strong winter travel season to Cuba has likely carried over into warmer temperatures, as has tourism growth throughout the Caribbean in general.

“The Caribbean has been very strong during the summer and among the Caribbean countries, Cuba has seen the greatest growth,” he said.

While Govea said that May and June are traditionally slow travel times for Canadians due in part to graduations and weddings at home, a growing destination wedding market in Cuba has also been drawing increasing numbers of Canadians. He added that Cuba’s accessibility to Canadian travellers from all parts of the country allows for wedding guests living in various parts of Canada to converge in Cuba to attend a ceremony, further contributing to the increase in travellers.

As well, a change in marketing tactics in one part of the country may also factor into the strong numbers in 2015, Govea said.

According to the director, the board shifted its advertising focus in the Toronto-area market this past winter to “out of home” channels, with less TV and radio commercials and an increase in outdoor advertising such as posters in bus shelters, subway stations and movie theatres, along with wraps on public transit vehicles including buses and trains. Promotion has also been increased in southern Ontario markets such as Ottawa, Hamilton, Windsor and St. Catharines, Govea said, and the board is also planning to increase its visibility by attending more travel industry events (such as the Ottawa Travel and Vacation Show held in March) and conducting additional media interviews throughout the year.

“It’s not an increase so much as how we have placed the ads,” the director explained. “We have made a change in that respect, targeting out-of-home visibility. Toronto is a very out-of-home city, while in Ottawa, we’ve taken a more traditional approach.... We believe that the market hasn’t reached the limit – we’re very far from exhausting tourism to Cuba.”