Varadero, Cuba’s popular beach resort town will welcome back international visitors without most COVID restrictions from Nov. 15, confirmed the Ministry of Tourism.
The Minister also said the island will focus on gradually restarting tourism facilities in specific locations.
Pandemic-permitting, the Ministry will provide services in other sites of the Matanzas province using the experience and information collected from Varadero’s reopening.
“We want to relaunch the country not only as a sun and beach destination but also to ensure that the motivation to travel to Cuba has a cultural component. For this we are already working with other ministries that can contribute a lot to that purpose,” he told Mesa Redonda’s T.V. program viewers.
Under the new rules, Cuba will no longer require visitors to undergo a COVID test on arrival.
Instead, the country will reinforce island-wide sanitary protocols to minimize the risk of contagion. However, mask requirements and physical distancing will remain in force at hotel facilities.
According to a Cuban Tourism Ministry spokeswoman, the measures will now focus on monitoring symptomatic people and performing temperature checks at the airport.
The government has also agreed to accept most vaccine certificates issued overseas.
The minister is confident that more than 90% of Cubans will have been vaccinated by Nov. 15, as well as the majority of tourists from the country’s major source markets.
Thus far, some 45,000 hospitality workers have received the full course of the Cuban-developed three-dose vaccine, which has shown an efficacy of 91.2% in late-stage clinical trials.
But the Cuban government is not the only one gearing up for the reopening. A number of hotel chains have been working non-stop to provide visitors with new services and facilities.
Iberostar, one of the best-positioned international hotel chains in the Cuban tourism sector has reopened the Grand Packard hotel, in Havana, two more in Varadero, one in Cayo Ensenacho, and another in Cayo Guillermo.
To ensure the highest standards of biosecurity, a medical and epidemiological team with necessary health equipment will be available at each of these hotels.