Varadero, Cuba.- Cuban Minister of Tourism (Mintur), Manuel Marrero, said today that the sector grew in May and so far in June, and predicted a recovery for the last four months of the year.

Marrero considered year 2018 to be complex due to the effects caused to the tourist poles of the north of this Caribbean country by Hurricane Irma at the end of the previous year.

The head of Mintur said that, despite the rapid recovery of the so-called industry without smokestacks in Cuba, there were doubts abroad about a real rehabilitation.

He highlighted the numerous actions carried out by the Ministry to reverse this situation, through direct contact with tour operators and the clients of the markets that send vacationers to the island.

In the Minister’s opinion, despite Irma and the backward step in relations with the United States, whose government has generated difficulties for the trips of its citizens to Cuba, ‘recovery progresses.’

‘It’s the right time to recognize Cuban workers in the sector, who are our main tool to provide more quality every day in the service and show what we are, our traditions, our culture,’ he said.

Marrero explained these considerations by opening the 10th International Varadero Gourmet Festival, scheduled until June 29 at the Plaza America Convention Center, 140 kilometers east of Havana.

Dissertations, product presentations, exhibitions and competitions, make up the broad agenda of this event, which in its tenth edition is attended by 53 exhibitors from 21 countries, according to the organizers.