As Varadero Declines, Matanzas Bets on Religious Tourism
Cuban exiles who practice Santería return to make offerings to their deities and perform other rituals.
By Pablo Padilla Cruz (14ymedio)
HAVANA TIMES – In Matanzas province, Varadero isn’t the only place that has seen the sharp decline of tourist traffic and local business revenues. “Tourism is doing badly everywhere,” confesses an employee at the Velasco-Louvre hotel complex in the provincial capital, who told 14ymedio that 75% of the rooms are empty and that the clients who do arrive “are almost all Cubans.”
“Except for the odd Russian, a couple of Canadians, and occasionally a Chinese visitor, most of the people who stay here are employees of some company with a contract in Cuba or sailors with ships anchored in the port,” says Liudmila. Even so, she insists that employees and managers “do what they can” to ensure that their clients have a pleasant stay.
If you look at the hotel’s TripAdvisor page, Liudmila explains, reviews range from clients who say they had a wonderful experience to those who swear they’ll never set foot in the Velasco-Louvre again. The hotel maintains a relatively high rating of 4.3 stars, which is explained, according to the employee, because “workers are often pressured by their bosses to give the hotel high ratings.”
Still, none of that is going to bring the yumas (foreigners) back, she jokes. That’s why the establishment has had to adapt to the times. “They came up with a ‘Cuban afternoon,’ and the only ones who show up are national clients and the relatives of the musicians who play at the event. It’s a Cuban afternoon to show Cuban culture to Cubans,” she mocks.
Liudmila also believes that lodging prices don’t work in the hotel’s favor. “A room is 70 euros this season, while a rental house with better conditions might not even reach $35. Private rentals in the city are beating us,” she admits.
Although private short-term rentals often do better than state hotels, the massive disappearance of tourists has also hit them hard, and they’ve had to adapt by targeting Cuban clients.
“Right now we have guests, old clients who come often, who’ll be staying for two months because their visit is for religious reasons,” says Dayana, 25, who divides her time between working at her parents’ hostel and a job at an ornamental plant shop. She explains that religious tourism is in fashion, and it’s mostly Cuban emigrants who practice it.
She says these are mainly people who already practiced Santería in Cuba and, when they left, didn’t lose contact with their padrinos (spiritual godfathers). As soon as they can, they return to the island to make offerings to their deities or undergo initiation rituals.
Others come simply because these ceremonies are cheaper on the island than, for example, in Miami. “I even met a family who, after living many years in Canada and traveling frequently to make offerings, decided to take their saint there. Before, their mother-in-law looked after the images, but as soon as they decided to bring her abroad, they packed the saints into their luggage and took them along. Even the saints emigrate,” she reflects.
Dayana and her family don’t practice Santería, but their rental is in a neighborhood where many follow the Yoruba faith, and when Canadians and Europeans became scarce, they saw an opportunity in religious tourism to keep their hostel afloat. “My aunt handles everything in the US through Airbnb, and we host the clients here. Only rarely does a friend working in a Varadero hotel recommend international tourists to us, though that hasn’t happened for a long time. The clients we do have are regulars who return because they’ve had good service, that’s clear,” she boasts.
Ana, another hostel owner in the Iglesias neighborhood, has adopted different strategies to stay afloat. Besides being located in the beach area, she has taken the saying “the master’s eye fattens the horse” literally, and there isn’t a single detail of her business she doesn’t oversee personally.
“As the owner, I know best what the client needs, and we are always trying to make their stay easier. Here, if a guest wants dinner, even if it’s not on the service list, we prepare one for an additional cost, so the visitor has the option. Since we’re smaller than a hotel, we can provide special attention to the clients’ needs. They appreciate it, and often return, sometimes becoming like part of the family,” Ana explains.
Attracting foreigners in the current crisis is a complicated task, but after her business survived the hardest years of the covid-19 pandemic, this woman from Matanzas refuses to let the hostel she has invested all her effort and money in disappear. “We’ve added laundry service and we offer breakfasts included in the hostel price, which doesn’t exceed $30. For Cuban clients, who are not very frequent, we even offer a discount or a free service.”
Getting food supplies and other items to keep the hostel running and provide good service is undoubtedly a problem for Ana. However, she takes the difficulties in stride: “We’ve been working in this business for 20 years and have our tricks. For now things are tight, but we’re surviving.”
The experiences of Dayana and Ana, however, differ from many private short-term rentals that have gone under due to shortages and the collapse of tourism. Nor have the state hotels, which one might expect to have more resources, fared well.
Close to Havana and just a few kilometers from the country’s most important tourist enclave, Matanzas experienced a hotel boom more than a decade ago. At that time, plans were made to restore three hotels in the historic center: the Velasco and the Louvre, which were abandoned and ultimately merged into a single establishment under the Encanto chain, and the Dos Amigos, a former tenement house. The project also included the París Hotel in Pueblo Nuevo.
Each of these locations was meant to have a theme: Afro-Cuban, Chinese, or Spanish culture, highlighting both the Asian influence in Matanzas and religion—nearby is the Callejón de las Tradiciones, dedicated to African heritage—with the celebration of La Colla, an old festival in honor of the Virgin of Montserrat, patron saint of Catalonia. There were also plans to evict families living in the tenements that were to be remodeled, but no alternative housing was found for them, and internal problems ultimately sank the plan.
Only the Velasco-Louvre ever opened its doors and still maintains some of its splendor after being restored in 2023, but not even the cultural theme imagined for it years ago remains.
First published in Spanish by 14ymedio and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.