Cuba tourism boom leads to beer shortage
Americans’ thirst for travel to Cuba is having an impact few people could have predicted.
The island is running out of beer and part of the blame is being laid at the steadily increasing number of US travellers.
Demand is so high that Cuban breweries are unable to keep up.
The country’s main brewer Bucanero, which is a joint venture between the government and Anheuser-Busch, said it will have to import three million cases of beer from Dominica to meet the demand in the short term.
The Bucanero brewing company produces four Cuban beer brands – Cacique, Mayabe, Cristal, and Bucanero.
The resumption of diplomatic ties between the US and Cuba has sparked a boom in private sector hotels, bars, cafes and restaurants and the only solution is to build a new brewery, said marketing specialist Mayle Gonzalez of the Cuban state news agency ACN.
"We have to build a new brewery to cover these requirements of the economy," Gonzalez said.
Since Americans were granted access to travel to Cuba the number of US travellers has surged 77%, while overall tourist arrivals were up by 17% to a record 3.5 million last year.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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