Meliá Closing Operations In Cuba
The iconic Spanish hotel chain Meliá is exiting Cuba. On Tuesday, the corporation announced it would effectively end all its hotel operations and services on the island this Friday, July 24.
The company cited “notable difficulties of an operational, legal, economic and financial nature” creating circumstances that made “a minimum level of operational stability impossible,” as the reason for terminating its Cuba operations.
The Meliá chain has been operating on the island since 1990. With 34 hotels and a capacity of 14,000 rooms, until recently it was the leading foreign hotel chain in Cuba. Among its famous hotels, which it has managed in joint ventures with the Cuban government, are the Meliá Cohiba, which towers over the Havana’s Malecón and the ocean, the Meliá Habana in Miramar, the Gran Hotel Bristol Habana Vieja, the Paradisus Varadero and Sol Varadero Beach.
The future of those properties is uncertain. It’s expected that some will continue under Cuban management. Meliá said that “the company is working to assure an orderly and responsible transition, to minimize as best as possible the impact on those with interests in the operations, including collaborators, clients, providers and local associates.” Two of the Meliá hotels contain Casa del Habano cigar stores, and the one in the Meliá Habana Hotel is highly regarded, frequented often by cigar aficionados who shop in Havana. Cigar Aficionado reached out to Meliá for comment about the future of those cigar shops, and the company had not responded yet as this story was posted.
Meliá’s decision to shutter its operations comes only days after the State Department designated Cuba’s Ministry of Tourism as a “blocked entity,” resulting in potential punitive sanctions against any foreign business that engaged directly or indirectly with that agency. On June 3, both Meliá and the Spanish chain Iberostar were forced to curtail some of their hotel operations after the State Department designated the Cuban military’s administrative corporation, GAESA, which controls significant parts of Cuba’s tourism sector, as a blocked entity.
Iberostar announced today that it will be closing its remaining six hotels on the island this week.
Cuba’s tourism industry has suffered a precipitous decline this year since the Trump administration implemented a blockade of oil shipments to Cuba in January. Critical fuel shortages and widespread electrical blackouts have led international carriers such as Air Canada, Iberia and Air France to suspend flights to the island. Delta Airlines recently announced it was reducing its Cuba routes.
Meliá reported earlier this year that it was operating at 50 percent of its capacity in Cuba. The hotel company’s business has been “significantly compromised,” the Spanish newspaper El Pais reported, as a consequence of U.S. sanctions effecting the tourism sector since the beginning of 2026.
