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The Cuban critic, theater researcher, editor, and professor Vivian Martínez Tabares suggested this Saturday that closed hotels in Cuba be converted into hospitals and apartment buildings for professionals and workers, in a publication that has resonated on social media for its starkness and practical sense.
"With so many hotels closed, it would be a great idea if, in a revolutionary manner, some could be transformed into hospitals and others into apartment buildings for professionals and skilled workers. This could be this one or any other," wrote Martínez on his Facebook profile alongside a photograph of the Iberostar Selection La Habana hotel, located in the skyscraper on 23rd Avenue, known as Torre K.
The proposal arises at a time when Cuban tourism has experienced four years of free fall: in the first quarter of 2026, Cuba received only 328,608 international tourists, a 55.8% decrease compared to the same period in 2025.
Hotel occupancy does not exceed 10% in 2026, a level at which no hotel generates profit, according to economist Elías Amor.
Gaviota, the tourism arm of the military conglomerate GAESA, has closed 20 hotels in Cayo Santa María, leaving over 7,000 workers unemployed. At least 11 airlines have suspended flights to Cuba this year, including Air Canada, Air France, and Turkish Airlines.
"GAESA has been witnessing a decline in tourism revenues for five years now, and how those new and shiny hotels that have been built with Cuban money are entirely empty," analyzed the economist Amor.
Martínez's proposal links that idle infrastructure with two structural crises that the regime has been unable to resolve.
On one hand, the housing shortage exceeds 929,000 units in 2026, 35% of the housing stock is in fair or poor condition, and in 2025 the State barely completed 2,382 of the 10,795 planned units.
On the other hand, in February, the Minister of Public Health José Ángel Portal Miranda himself stated before Parliament that the sector is "on the brink of collapse," with over 96,000 surgeries postponed, only 30% of the essential medicine supply available, and power outages of up to 20 hours in hospitals.
A partial roof collapse has also been reported at the Calixto García Hospital, along with wastewater under patient beds at the Juan Bruno Zayas Clinical Surgical Hospital.
In this context, of 94.1 million dollars to assist approximately two million Cubans in 63 municipalities across eight provinces.
The idea of converting empty hotels, modern buildings with water and electricity facilities, and already constructed rooms into social resources emerges as a solution that would avoid building from scratch in a country lacking materials and foreign currency, where Meliá was operating at 50% of its capacity paralyzed in the first quarter of the year.
Furthermore, cement production in Cuba operates at 10% of its installed capacity, making any large-scale construction plans practically impossible, while empty hotels stand as a symbol of the regime's failed priorities.
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