Related videos:
Iberostar confirmed this Tuesday that it has ceased to operate and market 12 of its 18 hotels in Cuba since June 1, in direct response to the sanctions imposed by the Trump administration against the Business Administration Group S.A. (GAESA), the military conglomerate that controls a significant portion of the Cuban economy.
The decision was first communicated to the Argentine tour operator Sudameria on Monday night, and officially confirmed by the company to EFE this Tuesday around 2:00 PM.
Sources from the company described the situation in Cuba as "critical and complex" and justified the measure as "a process of adaptation to the international regulatory environment."
The 12 affected establishments belong to Gaviota, the hotel subsidiary of GAESA, and are: Iberostar Grand Packard, Iberostar Selection Ensenachos, Iberostar Coral Ensenachos, Iberostar Selection Holguín, Iberostar Coral Holguín, Iberostar Selection Esmeralda, Iberostar Coral Esmeralda, Iberostar Selection La Habana, Iberostar Origin Bella Vista Varadero, Iberostar Origin Laguna Azul, Iberostar Origin Playa Pilar, and Iberostar Origin Playa Alameda.
The six remaining hotels—affiliated with Cubanacán and Gran Caribe, government tourism groups in Cuba that are not part of GAESA—will continue to operate under the Iberostar brand.
Among the abandoned hotels is the Iberostar Selection La Habana, the tallest hotel building in Cuba with 42 floors, inaugurated in March 2025 with a state investment of 200 million dollars.
The pressure that led to the decision has a name and a date: the Executive Order 14404 signed by Trump on May 1, 2026, which included secondary sanctions for foreign companies with economic ties to GAESA and its subsidiaries, with June 5 set as the deadline to sever those ties.
The State Department described GAESA as "the core of Cuba's kleptocratic communist system" and accused it of having diverted up to 20 billion dollars in illicit assets to hidden bank accounts abroad.
The departure of Iberostar, present in Cuba since 1993 and the second-largest foreign hotel chain by number of assets on the island, comes just days after the Canadian company Blue Diamond also confirmed its definitive withdrawal last Friday, with 62 hotels and over 12,900 rooms.
The exodus from the international hotel sector increases pressure on Meliá Hotels International, the Spanish chain with the greatest presence in Cuba. It manages approximately 35 hotels with around 14,000 rooms, accounting for 14% of its global portfolio.
Meliá has not made an official statement, although half of its hotels on the island were already closed due to lack of demand in the first quarter of 2026, with an average occupancy rate of 34.1% and a 68% drop in net profit.
In 2024, Meliá's operations in Cuba reported losses of four million euros, compared to the company's overall profit of 267 million euros.
The collapse of tourism in Cuba is due to a combination of factors: chronic power outages, shortages of food and fuel, and the loss of air connectivity after running out of Jet A-1 fuel. In March 2026, the island received only 35,561 visitors, with an estimated impact of 300,000 workers in the sector without stable employment.
The regime responded this Tuesday with an article in the official newspaper Granma titled "Cuba, the GAE and the United States: Anatomy of a State Calumny," in which it accused Washington of "escalation" without mentioning the deadline of June 5 or providing any audit figures regarding GAESA.
Meliá warned in May that "as long as uncertainty persists, the evolution of the tourism business in the region will depend on the development of events and the eventual recovery of supplies and normalcy."
Filed under: