The empty sun loungers at Varadero beach tell a story of shattered dreams. Cuba’s tourism industry, once the engine of its faltering economy, has all but ground to a halt under the weight of renewed US sanctions. But as the last charter flights depart, a quieter invasion is already underway: British investors, sensing the end of the embargo, are circling like sharks in clear water.
For years, Havana’s crumbling colonial facades and vintage Chevrolets were a fetish for Western tourists seeking a time capsule. The numbers were impressive: 4.7 million visitors in 2018, a staggering figure for an island of 11 million. Then came Trump’s tightening of the embargo, the cancellation of cruises, and the gutting of guesthouse licences. COVID delivered the knockout blow. Now, the state-run hotels are ghost towns. The Paladares, those private restaurants that once thrived, are shuttered. The self-employed taxi drivers, the bicitaxi pedalers, the salsa instructors: all wait, their livelihoods evaporating.
But where the casual observer sees desolation, the British investor sees opportunity. A quiet but determined group of entrepreneurs, property developers, and hoteliers are positioning themselves for a post-embargo Cuba. The logic is simple: when the US lifts sanctions (a question of when, not if), Cuba will be the last Caribbean frontier. Havana’s real estate is ridiculously undervalued. Varadero’s beaches rival the Maldives. And the Cuban people, educated and desperate, offer a workforce that is both skilled and cheap.
I spoke to James, a former City banker now scouting for a boutique hotel chain. ‘The key is patience,’ he said, sipping a mojito in a half-empty bar. ‘We’re not buying yet. We’re building relationships. When the doors open, we’ll be first in line.’ His confidence is shared by others: a British consortium is already negotiating with the Cuban government for a land lease on the north coast. Another group is retrofitting a colonial mansion in Vedado, turning it into a ‘luxury residence club’ for early investors.
This is not charity. It is cold-eyed capitalism dressed in linen suits. The cultural shift here is profound: Cuba, for decades a symbol of anti-imperialist defiance, is being prepared for a real estate boom. The Human Cost is equally stark. Cubans are being priced out of their own future. The new hotels will be all-inclusive resorts, enclaves of foreign currency that do little for the local economy. The driver who can no longer afford to repair his 1957 Buick will soon be a bellboy for a British tourist who paid £500 a night for a room.
The irony is not lost on the old guard. A retired history professor in Havana told me, ‘We survived the Special Period. We survived the Soviet collapse. But can we survive being turned into a theme park?’ It is a question that haunts every island paradise that has traded sovereignty for dollars.
Yet the investors are undeterred. They see the collapse not as a tragedy, but as a clearance sale. The last taxi driver I met in Centro Habana had a different view. He had spent his savings on a new engine, hoping for a revival. ‘Now, I just wait,’ he said, wiping his brow. ‘But for how long?’ For the British investors, the answer is simple: as long as it takes. For the people of Cuba, it is a sentence without end.
