Hotels in Cuba Resort to Food Imports Amid Shortages

The recent launch of the import company Mesol, under the management of Meliá Hotels International in Cuba, highlights the island’s severe crisis in supplying basic goods. While the official press frames this initiative as an efficient solution to maintain quality at the Spanish chain’s hotels, it underscores the Cuban government's failure to ensure essential provisions for both its population and commercial partners.

Established earlier this year, Mesol aims to supply Meliá hotels with a wide range of products, from food and beverages to cleaning supplies and kitchenware. This strategic move addresses the increasing difficulty of finding basic products in the Cuban market—a problem affecting not only citizens but also the major hotel chains operating in the country.

The official statement from Meliá emphasizes that Mesol will collaborate closely with hotel teams and long-standing suppliers, primarily from Spain, while also seeking new providers in the Caribbean and Latin America. This distribution network, which includes the nationalization, transport, and storage of products, aims to ensure a steady flow of supplies to maintain the service quality characteristic of Meliá.

Other Hotel Chains Follow Suit

However, this import strategy is not new among hotel chains in Cuba. According to the independent outlet 14ymedio, other companies, such as the Indian MGM Muthu Hotels and the Canadian Blue Diamond, have taken similar paths. These firms have established their own import companies to bring in everything from furniture to food products like Nutella and ketchup—items scarce or non-existent in the Cuban market.

Meanwhile, the Cuban government has shown an ambivalent stance on this issue. On one hand, it has publicly criticized the reliance on imports, arguing that the country should be able to supply hotels with national products, thereby fostering economic interlinking. In a 2022 article, the state-run newspaper Granma stressed the need for hotels to buy locally but did not mention the systemic issues preventing local farmers from meeting the demand.

In reality, contracts between hotel chains and local producers are managed through the Ministry of Agriculture, an intermediary that, according to testimonies, discourages farmers due to irregular payments and contractual breaches. This situation has led to widespread distrust and a decline in local production, exacerbating the need for imports.

Tourism Stagnation and Economic Crisis

Meliá's decision to create Mesol comes amidst a stagnation in Cuba’s tourism sector, where revenues and hotel occupancy have fallen short of expectations. The island's political and economic situation has tarnished its international image, negatively impacting the flow of tourists. In 2023, Cuba was the only destination where Meliá reported a drop in both revenue and hotel occupancy, a clear indicator of the sector's crisis.

In March of that year, the Cuban government acknowledged the issues plaguing the tourism sector, including insufficient air connectivity, unpaid suppliers disrupting the supply chain, and difficulties accessing the international market—problems highlighted in a Canal Caribe report. To combat the crisis, the government stressed the need to increase contracts with national suppliers and stock hotels with food and other services.

Additionally, the government recognized the sector’s decapitalization, caused by a lack of personnel to work in hotels and tourist facilities—a problem coinciding with the recent exodus of Cubans. Tourist complaints about the poor quality of food offered at tourist facilities fill pages of travel and tourism websites.

“The food was barely edible, most of the time it wasn’t,” said a Canadian tourist who spent two weeks at the Barceló Solymar - Occidental Arenas Blancas resort in Varadero. “The worst experience of my life,” summarized the tourist, who added that the situation forced him to eat outside the hotel complex most of the time. Snacks consisted of “day-old dry rolls, raw hot dogs, or a single slice of meat... without ketchup or mustard,” he added. “I was served raw chicken and rice with stones in it,” he complained. "Scarce food and two-hour lines to get a piece of meat," described some tourists last May about the situation at the Meliá Las Dunas hotel in Cayo Santa María, north of the Cuban province of Villa Clara.

“Third day in Varadero, Cuba, and now we’re finally going to have dinner at a decent place because the hotel food is awful,” said a Mexican tourist who spent his vacation at the famous resort in July 2023.

The Cuban regime’s focus on developing tourism at the expense of other vital sectors is an unsustainable strategy. The creation of import companies by foreign hotel chains is a stopgap measure that highlights the government’s inability to efficiently manage the economy and ensure the well-being of its citizens. Instead of relying on imports, Cuba should focus on strengthening its local production and creating an economic environment that allows its residents and commercial partners to thrive without resorting to external solutions.