Cuba says nearly three-quarters of hotels have shut as travel plunges

Nearly three-quarters of Cuba’s hotels have been closed and the island’s tourism sector has been brought to “almost total paralysis” by US sanctions and fuel shortages, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero said on Wednesday. Detailing the scale of the tourism crisis for the first time, Marrero said seven international chains, responsible for about half of all hotel rooms, had left the island. Tourism had been Cuba’s second-largest source of foreign currency earnings, employing more than 300,000…