HAVANA.- ACN) Cuban Minister of Tourism Manuel Marrero reported to the People´s Power Assembly that in the first six months of 2017, almost 2.7 million tourists visited the island, for a 23.2 percent growth compared to last year.

Minister Marrero said Canada, the largest source market of tourist for Cuba, is recovering on its figures, which went down in 2016. Meanwhile the US market grew 150 percent, despite the fact that American citizens need special licenses to visit the island.

Other markets also show increases, like Spain, Franc, Italy and Germany. According to Marrero, revenues for the country out of tourism are about 1.5 billion dollars in the first six months, a 9 percent increase compared to the same period of last year.

Among the facts that helped this growth, the Minister mentioned that new airlines open routes to Cuba, like one from Turkey, and others increase their flights frequency, like Air Europa and Air France.

Taking into the account the behavior of the arrivals, the Cuban Ministry of Tourism expects that over 4.7 million people travel to the island this year, half a million more than the plan, for a 16.5 increase.

The upward trend allows the country to hope to break the 5 million tourists a year mark in 2018, and in order to achieve this it needs to increase very quickly the amount of hotels, restaurants and complimentary services in the next months.