The difficult United States - Cuba foreign relations have shaped the Cuban tourism industry from pre-revolution times when Cuba was the most popular Caribbean destination for American tourists, to the post-revolution events including the economic blockade established by President Kennedy. American presidents have used the U.S. Cuba policies to control American tourists’ access to Cuba. This study investigates the impact of U.S. Cuba policies on the Cuban tourism industry with a focus on the Obama and Trump administrations. It estimates the impact of Obama and Trump Cuba policies based on the number of U.S. tourist arrivals between 2014 and 2019. The study addresses these impacts in the context of the growth of the Cuban tourism industry between 1990 and 2019 in terms of tourist arrivals from key source markets. This study concludes that the Cuban tourism industry has been strongly influenced by the U.S. Cuba policy during the Obama and Trump administration. Starting in 2009 President Obama improved the U.S. - Cuba relations and in 2017 the U.S. became the largest source market with 1,228,680 Americans visiting Cuba. This growth reversed to a drastic decline in 2019 as President Trump’s travel restrictions started to have a major impact
