Tourism ministry officials assist recovery after Hurricane Melissa

Officials from the Ministry of Tourism and its business sector are in eastern Cuba, assisting local authorities in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa.

The objective has been to strengthen preventative measures and support recovery efforts following this devastating event, explained Yami Aldama, deputy minister of Tourism, on Facebook.

The potential impacts on the provinces affected by the storm, which left the country Wednesday morning, are still being assessed, although cloud cover persisted with areas of showers and rain.

The interaction of this tropical storm with land weakened the system, reducing its maximum sustained winds to 155 kilometers per hour to become a Category 2 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale. According to its probable trajectory, the Forecast Center of the Institute of Meteorology in Cuba estimated that it would maintain a similar course, increasing its speed, with the possibility of gaining slightly in organization and intensity before affecting the southeast of the Bahamas.

Hurricane Melissa hits Caribbean tourism

The Tourism and Society Think Tank (TSTT), an association of professionals specializing in various areas of tourism and society, reports that the devastating passage of Hurricane Melissa has severely impacted the Caribbean region’s tourism industry, including key destinations such as Jamaica, Cuba, and other islands.

In Jamaica, Melissa made landfall with winds of up to 185 mph (approximately 295 km/h), making it the strongest storm to hit the island since official records began. The impact on infrastructure, connectivity, and tourism bookings was immediate: flights were suspended, cruises were rerouted, evacuations took place, and hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses lost power, TSTT notes.

Coastal hotels, beach communities, and resorts in vulnerable areas have been evacuated or have suffered serious damage, presenting a challenging outlook for sun and beach tourism, a pillar of the Jamaican economy.
Regarding Cuba, damage assessments are still underway, but as a precaution, authorities evacuated more than 735,000 people in the eastern provinces.

The rest of the country’s tourist destinations, in the central and western regions, are continuing normal operations.
Inter-institutional coordination for recovery, the review of evacuation protocols, and the strengthening of climate-resilient infrastructure stand out as urgent issues, experts add.