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.