Hotels, Excursions and Modern Cars Denote Cuba’s New Rich
HAVANA TIMES – “I don’t know if it’s because people are trying to escape the blackouts, but they’re buying like never before… even the excursions that were switched to dollars and we thought wouldn’t sell. At least here in Camagüey, the crisis isn’t visible.”
That’s how Claudia, an employee at a travel agency in the city of Camagüey, describes her work over the past few months. This year she has had to work marathon shifts to meet the demand from domestic customers. Every summer, Cubans’ interest in hotels and excursions grows, but this season could surpass even the best figures from before the pandemic, she believes.
“What’s striking is the number of repeat families, as we call them. There are some who have booked three or even four different stays since May. And even in the cheapest hotels, the daily rate is around 30 US dollars per person. You do the math,” she said.
In round numbers, that would be nearly 12,000 pesos at the informal market exchange rate in early August—more than twice the average monthly salary Cuba recorded at the end of 2024 (5,839 pesos).
Tourism Ministry officials have been noticing this trend and have tried to capitalize on it. They hope to offset the absence of foreign vacationers, whose numbers fell by about 25 percent between the first half of 2024 and the same period this year. Even Prime Minister Manuel Marrero has called for “designing offers specifically with the national tourist in mind.” He was not talking about lowering prices to make them affordable for the average citizen but rather focusing on the segment of the population with greater purchasing power.
“Docked” in Cuban Ports
The government’s deference toward these potential domestic tourists contrasts with its suspicion toward other visible signs of their prosperity.
Take luxury cars, for example. In July of last year, Marrero himself criticized the importation of vehicles by private individuals and announced a new, more restrictive policy on the matter. According to him, “such cars are really not compatible with our society, they’re not necessary, and we need to limit their numbers in line with the country’s interests.” The intention was for all importing and commercial activity related to these vehicles to be handled by state companies. Among those mentioned by the prime minister was Servicios Automotores Sociedad Anónima (SASA), a company with a long history of corruption and poor practices.
As so often happens, reality overtook the government’s plans. On the one hand, state companies lacked the foreign currency and importing infrastructure they needed; on the other, the demand from many of Cuba’s “new rich” kept encouraging dealerships based in the United States and other countries to find ways to get vehicles into the island.
A year after Marrero’s statements, dozens of agencies claim they can deliver a wide range of cars, trucks, SUVs, and other vehicles, “used or completely new,” according to one ad, to a Cuban port. Judging by the growing number of such vehicles on Cuban streets and highways, they mean it.
“So many are coming in that prices for many models have dropped. For example, two or three years ago a Toyota Yaris cost 38,000 or even 40,000 dollars, and now there are agencies bringing them from the USA for under 30,000. It’s fierce competition, which has even driven down the prices of Russian cars and some models of old American cars,” explained Yaynier, a Camagüey mechanic and auto electrician who has had to study up to handle the modern cars now brought in by some clients. “I’ve worked on cars from as recent as 2023, and I know there are quite a few brand-new models in Havana. From what I’ve been told, sometimes the registration process takes longer than shipping the car to Cuba.”
The variety of models and the large amounts of cash concentrated in a few hands have also given rise to a budding domestic market. In early July, a modern-car buying and selling fair held at a paladar (private restaurant) in rural Camagüey made the news. Responding to some online skeptics, the person who filmed the event assured that it was mostly attended by Cubans living on the island. “One of the few people from abroad was me. It’s a fair they hold regularly, and it moves real money. Just that day, deals worth more than $650,000 in cash were closed.”
Looked Upon with Disfavor
In June, Minister of Economy and Planning Joaquín Alonso revealed figures that, in earlier times, would have set off alarm bells for the government: 60 percent of the nation’s cash is in the hands of 10 percent of the population, and half of the money deposited in banks belongs to just 2 percent of savers.
There are no—at least public—statistics to compare the first of those indicators to previous years, but for the second there are references confirming the rapid concentration of wealth taking place on the island. In 2018, 80 percent of bank deposits belonged to the top 10 percent of account holders; in other words, in seven years the weight of the largest savers has nearly tripled. And this despite the fact that during the same period, distrust in banks became widespread, causing much commercial and savings activity to be carried out in cash.
Back in 2018, during the presentation of the draft new constitution, Council of State secretary Homero Acosta had foreseen such a scenario—and that it would not be frowned upon by the authorities.
“What we have to regulate is not the concentration of wealth, but the concentration of property. The fact that some people earn large incomes is in no way in conflict with the principles of equality and social justice defended by our Revolution,” he told lawmakers who questioned the future constitution’s lack of definition regarding inequality.
To understand the government’s change of opinion, one must consider the visible enrichment of part of Cuba’s leadership. The cases of Sandro Castro (Fidel Castro’s grandson), and of the children of Lis Cuesta (the de facto first lady) and Prime Minister Manuel Marrero are the most media-covered, but not the only ones. In recent years, the independent press has also documented the comfortable lives abroad of the children of officials such as Construction Minister Rene Mesa and Marino Murillo, now head of the Tabacuba corporation. After the scandal that in July cost her the job, it became known that Labor and Social Security Minister Marta Elena Feito was fond of luxury resorts like Varadero.
In the age of social media, embarking on a crusade against the new rich would mean, for many high-ranking officials, throwing stones at their own glass houses. It would also jeopardize the profitable economic ties several of them maintain with private businesses. This is a very particular reinterpretation of Deng Xiaoping’s maxim that “to get rich is glorious.” But unlike what happened in China, in Cuba the exceptional prosperity of a few has not translated into benefits for the majority.