From Tips to Unemployment: Tourism Decline Hits Its Workers
Workers at the Hotel Velasco in Matanzas, Cuba lose their jobs amid the collapse in foreign visitors.
By Julio Cesar Contreras (14ymedio)
HAVANA TIMES – The man who today walks into the Hotel Velasco like any other visitor spent ten years behind the carved wooden reception desk, answering the phone and attending to guests. He did not leave that chair by choice. Staff cuts shattered the value of his degree in Tourism and the experience he had previously accumulated at hotels in Varadero.
“After working for nearly two decades in the sector, they fired me and offered me a job at the Watkins Zoo cleaning animal cages. Tell me that isn’t disrespectful,” laments David, whose name has been changed to avoid reprisals.
He walks across the granite floor of the lobby, spotless and almost empty. There are no foreigners unloading suitcases from a Transtur bus and no travelers lining up to check in. Above the reception desk, four golden stars recall the hotel’s category, while three clocks seem determined to mark the hours for guests who never arrive.
The Velasco, across from Plaza de la Libertad, is part of Matanzas’ sentimental landscape. The property was purchased by Luis Velasco Zorrilla in 1902 and opened as a hotel six years later. In its best years, its café, restaurant, and rooms made the building one of the city center’s landmark accommodations.
Now its quietness sums up a nationwide problem. In June, barely 28,100 international travelers arrived in Cuba, fewer even than the 35,795 recorded in June 2021, at the height of the pandemic. During the first half of the year, 699,878 arrived, just 48.7% of the 1,364,400 recorded during the same period in 2025. Nearly half of those who arrived in June were Cubans living abroad.
In July there was a slight increase, to 32,272 travelers, but the figure was 71% lower than in the same month of 2025 and 92% below July 2018.
The debacle is now reaching those who for decades belonged to a very particular labor aristocracy. Landing a job in tourism meant gaining access to tips, foreign currency, and products that were practically beyond the reach of a teacher, doctor, or municipal services worker.
It was also a particularly tightly controlled sector. Until Decree-Law 128 took effect this September, foreign companies could not directly hire their Cuban employees and had to do so through state employment agencies. The new regulation, one of 176 economic and social changes approved in June, eliminates that mandatory intermediary for joint ventures and wholly foreign-owned companies.
For years, selection criteria included not only job requirements but also assessments of workplace and social conduct, a mechanism that favored the hiring of personnel considered politically reliable.
Under the same lamp that David avoided turning on during his night shifts to save electricity, he was handed the notice informing him that he had been declared “unemployed.”
“I filed a complaint with the union. I also wrote to Gran Caribe, with copies to Mintur, the Government, and the Communist Party. What did they do with my career? Crumpled it up like a napkin and tossed it in the trash.”
Maile was not spared either. She worked in room service and was sent home in April; after the first month, she was left without salary protection. “Thanks to tips from some guests, I could buy diapers for my mother, who is bedridden. My feet would be swollen after so many hours standing, but I could see the results of my sacrifice.”
To the right of the lobby, the bar is stocked with bottles, but there are no customers and not even any coffee. A bartender speaks quietly as he prepares a cocktail with the bare essentials. “When they take you out of the game, you instantly cease to exist.”
He says he will not accept a job with Municipal Services. “It’s honorable work, but I didn’t study to end up sweeping Medio Street.” His coworkers joke about the possibility of making drinks from home, an ironic reference to the government’s push for remote work.
“If the tourists stay missing, half a shift will be enough to handle the entire hotel. This looks like the Sahara Desert,” he concludes, pointing to the empty tables.
David looks toward the reception desk one last time. The diplomas and certificates that once made him proud now seem to belong to another life.
“The tourists can come back tomorrow if they want,” he says. “I’m the one who isn’t coming back.”
First published in Spanish by 14ymedio and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.