Cuba has received the first group of Chinese tourists since China designated the Western Hemisphere’s only communist nation as one of its tourism destinations last year. A group of 20 tourists from Beijing arrived in Havana for a four-day stay and planned to visit the beach resort of Varadero.

Tourism has become Cuba’s main source of hard currency since the collapse of the former Soviet Union. Havana is hoping to draw increasing numbers of the 16 million Chinese who travel abroad each year, Cuban officials said.