Back in US President Barack Obama descended from Air Force One on Cuban land in 2016, he represented among approximately four million visitors to the nation that year.
A record high back then, Cuba's tourism figures continued to grow up to a high-water mark of nearly 5 million visitors by 2018.
From that point, however, the decline in Cuban tourism has been steep.
Battered by the dual impact of the COVID-19 crisis and harsher tourism limits imposed by the previous US government, last year was among Cuba's weakest in tourism this century.
Given the island's longstanding sectors – such as sugar, tobacco and minerals – in the doldrums, tourism serves as Cuba's main means of hard currency income after remittances.
Fewer tourists, then, means less money in the state coffers to invest in the island's crumbling energy infrastructure, or to use on urgently needed basic foods and medicine.
Longtime partners – Caracas and Moscow – confront major financial difficulties of their own, and while China has financed some renewable energy projects, the Chinese government is focused with larger geopolitical issues.
Today, Cuba is in the grip of its deepest economic crisis since the Soviet era.
"In principle, tourism remains the nation's economic driver," explains the island's tourism official, Juan Carlos García Granda.
Within the capital, the BBC asks the man at the wheel of that economic motor about the industry's current state of health:
"Well, I'm no physician," the minister remarks dryly, "however, I assure you that Cuban tourism remains vibrant."
He claims that the national authorities has stopped the slide observed in the current year, and that the next quarter of this year will demonstrate better statistics.
"We encounter obstacles none of our competitors do," García Granda continues.
"The intensity and the stress from an financial conflict initiated by the globe's primary origin of visitors, the US, has prevented Cuban tourism from reaching pre-COVID numbers."
Referring to the longstanding US economic embargo on Cuba, the minister says actions implemented by Washington from the former president's initial administration in power in that year have been intentionally crafted to harm the island's tourism business.
"During his initial presidency, they took 263 measures [against Cuba], the majority focused on destroying the travel sector."
In particular, he highlights a prohibition on American cruise liner companies from arriving in the island's harbors.
"Without that, we might have welcomed an additional one-million tourists [a year]," García Granda calculates.
A stricter measure came in early 2021 when the United States again placed Cuba on the roster of nations supporting terrorism (SSOT). President Biden removed Cuba off the list in early this year, but Trump to relist it shortly after when he began his second term.
The classification has a knock-on effect: UK and some EU tourists who traveled to the island after 12 January 2021 are no longer eligible for an travel authorization (the US visa waiver) to enter the United States.
Given the complications for those travellers – who find themselves plunged into a lengthier, more difficult American visa procedure – many potential British visitors have been put off from traveling to the island altogether.
"Thousands of UK visitors have to travel to Cuba via Madrid, via France, some also via Toronto. Yet not through the Florida city. Tell me why a British citizen, entirely independent, cannot fly to the island via that hub?" García Granda asks rhetorically.
However some the decisions affecting the state of Cuban tourism were made by the US. During the Obama-era thaw, the Cuban government launched an extensive hotel-construction initiative in the capital and the key coastal destination, the resort area.
Just in Havana, at least half a dozen recently built luxury hotels were constructed to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. The latest, referred to as the Torre K, is the highest structure on the nation, its massive frame towering over the Vedado area of the capital city.
"There are plenty of alternative accommodations in Havana and it clashes with its surroundings," says university student Danais, speaking in the plaza nearby. "I would have allocated the funds for different purposes, for needs we really need like dealing with the power outages."
"It ignores its city setting," echoes another student, who is studying design. "As an architect, I see several favorable and negative points, and it is definitely among the most impressive structures in the nation.
"But it didn't need to be this luxurious and extravagant, particularly with numerous hotels in the urban area lying empty."
I put those points to the travel official, noting most locals do not view the Torre K as a symbol to the country's ingenuity and innovation, but rather as a sign of flawed central planning and the government's inability to listen to the most pressing requirements of its people.
The minister acknowledges that the building has its critics, but contends that plenty of Cubans, particularly those who work there, value the recent construction to the Havana skyline.
Still, the island's building initiative prompts a key issue over if Cuba was misled by the Obama administration – sold a vision of warmer political ties and a steady flow of US visitors which never materialised.
Was the Cuban government at fault for failing to plan for shifting political winds, or are US leaders at fault for implementing a international strategy which was not strong enough or durable to last from one administration to the next?
Unsurprisingly, the official maintains that the island's tourism strategy did not rely on poor planning.
"A gap" in accommodation supply in the island was revealed "during the Obama era, which showed the need for more accommodation in Havana," he states. Furthermore, he adds, the expenses have not solely been borne by the government.
"More than 70% of Cuban tourism relies on
