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Back in US President Barack Obama descended from Air Force One onto Cuban land in 2016, he was among approximately 4 million visitors to the island that year.

An unprecedented peak at the time, Cuba's tourism figures continued to grow up to a peak level of nearly five million visitors two years later.

From that point, however, the decline in the island's tourism has proven steep.

Battered by the twin effects of the coronavirus pandemic and harsher tourism limits enforced by the previous US government, the previous year stood as one of Cuba's weakest in tourism in recent decades.

Given the nation's longstanding sectors – such as sugar cane, cigars and minerals – in the doldrums, the travel sector serves as Cuba's primary means of hard currency income following money sent from abroad.

Reduced visitor numbers, then, means reduced funds in the state coffers to allocate in the island's aging power grid, or to use on essential basic foods and medicine.

Traditional allies – Venezuela and Russia – are facing major financial difficulties of their own, and while Beijing has financed some solar power initiatives, the Chinese government is preoccupied with larger global matters.

Today, Cuba faces its most severe financial downturn since the Soviet era.

"In principle, tourism remains the nation's economic locomotive," explains the Cuban tourism minister, Juan Carlos García Granda.

Within the capital, journalists asks the official in charge of that economic motor about the industry's present condition:

"Actually, I'm no physician," García Granda comments wryly, "but I can tell you that Cuban tourism is alive and kicking."

He claims that the Cuban government has halted the slide observed in 2024, and that the second trimester of the present year will demonstrate improved figures.

"We face challenges that our rivals face," García Granda continues.

"The intensity and the pressure from an financial conflict launched by the world's main source of tourists, the United States, has hindered the island's travel industry from returning to pre-COVID levels."

Referring to the longstanding US economic embargo on the island, the minister states steps taken by Washington from President Trump's initial administration in power in that year have been specifically designed to hurt Cuba's tourist trade.

"In Trump's first term, they took 263 steps [targeting Cuba], most focused on destroying the travel sector."

In particular, he highlights a ban on US cruise ship operators from docking in the island's harbors.

"Lacking that, we might have welcomed another one-million tourists [a year]," the official estimates.

A more draconian step came in January 2021 as the US again placed the island on the list of nations supporting terrorism (SSOT). The current US leader removed the nation off the designation in early this year, only for the former president to relist it just days later when he started his second term.

The classification creates ripple effects: British and certain European tourists who traveled to the island following 12 January 2021 are no longer qualify for an ESTA (the Electronic System for Travel Authorisation) to visit the US.

Considering the complications for those travellers – who find themselves plunged into a longer, more difficult US visa process – numerous potential British tourists have been discouraged from traveling to Cuba entirely.

"Thousands of UK visitors must reach Cuba via Madrid, via Paris, some even through Toronto. But not through the Florida city. Tell me the reason a British citizen, entirely independent, cannot fly to the island through that hub?" the minister questions rhetorically.

Yet not all the choices impacting the state of Cuban tourism were made in Washington. Throughout the period of improved relations, the island's leadership launched an extensive hotel-construction initiative in the capital and the key coastal destination, the resort area.

In the capital alone, at least half a dozen new five-star hotels have been erected to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. The newest, referred to as the Torre K, is the highest structure on the nation, its massive frame towering over the Vedado area of the Cuban capital.

"We have many other hotels in the city and it clashes with its surroundings," says university student a local, speaking in the square nearby. "I'd have used the funds for other ends, for needs we really need like dealing with the power outages."

"It ignores its city setting," agrees Sabrina, who studies architecture. "From a design perspective, I note some positive and unfavorable points, and it's certainly one of the most notable structures in the country.

"However it shouldn't have been this opulent and extravagant, particularly with numerous hotels in the urban area lying empty."

I put those points to the tourism minister, noting most Cubans do not see the tower as a monument to the nation's ingenuity and innovation, but instead as a symbol of flawed government strategy and the authorities' failure to address the urgent requirements of its people.

The minister admits that the building has its critics, but argues that plenty of residents, especially those who are employed there, value the new addition to the city's landscape.

Still, the island's hotel construction push raises a key question over if Cuba was given false hopes by the Obama administration – sold a vision of warmer political ties and a consistent stream of US visitors which never materialised.

Was the Cuban government guilty of failing to plan for changing political seas, or is Washington to blame for enacting a foreign policy which was not strong enough or durable to endure from one administration to the following?

As expected, the minister maintains that Cuba's tourism strategy did not rely on poor planning.

"A shortage" in accommodation supply in Cuba became apparent "throughout the Obama era, which showed the necessity for more accommodation in the capital," he argues. Additionally, he notes, the expenses have not solely been borne by the Cuban state.

"More than 70% of the island's travel sector relies on