Posts Tagged ‘Data Journalism’

Cuba: Facts about Tourism

Posted: June 19, 2014 by jennroig in Articles, English
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Just on April 2014, the Cuban Statistics Office (ONE) reported the arrival of 287.103 tourists to the Island.

This is not a huge number. By comparison, Canary Islands received 956.407 tourists that same month.

However, if we look at the numbers for longer periods we may find some surprising trends.

Here you can access the interactive chart I created with DataWrapper to see the actual trends. The data shows the total numbers for the period between 2006 -2011, as well as specific data about tourists’ countries of origin. If you want to find out how many tourists visited Cuba from China, Colombia, Spain and many others among the principal senders, even the USA, the numbers are there.

totals

– Surprise #1: To realize that the arrival of tourists actually has increased. There was growth even after 2008, when the world economy was suffering from the impact of the financial crisis. Moreover, another report from ONE comparing the numbers for the period between January and April, years 2010-2014, further supports that conclusion.

This is pointing to a single, very important argument: whatever the causes are for the renewed scarcity affecting Cubans for the last few years, it has nothing to do with tourism. Unless, of course, numbers wouldn’t be accurate and ONE would be lying.

top five tourism to cuba– Surprise #2: Canadians have been by far the primary visitors, the growth has been steady, at odds with the rest of the countries. The lines for England, Spain, Germany or Italy, even though quite flat, the trend is toward a decline. I will risk saying that Canadian tourism to Cuba is mostly families who go there to all inclusive beach-resorts, and come back again to enjoy warm sea waters, the security of the streets, and a sort of more familiar rapport that they create with Cubans on the service sector.

Meanwhile, a lot of young single Europeans go to Cuba drawn on the one hand to the political context, to check first hand all the media versions. On the other, there’s a lot of sex tourism going on in Cuba. That’s why a lot of Cuban young men and women went to Europe either married or with fiance visas. And that’s why I found a lot of bad reputation for Cuban women there.

– Surprise #3: Italy ranks 3rd, above Spain. For the reputation of Italians as couch potatoes, it seems that they actually like to check out the Caribbean, or at least Cuba. They travel to Cuba in bigger numbers than Spanish, which is interesting given the historical and cultural ties between Spanish and Cubans.

Now, the following doesn’t surprise me by itself. It shows how tourism from European countries has decreased, especially since 2008.

EuropeIt makes sense, considering the economic mess that the European Union has been dealing with for years. I would expect to find that numbers for 2014 are even smaller. In 2011 the Euro crisis was spiking. To this point, the situation in Spain, Italy or Portugal haven’t improved that much.

That leads to a question: if Europe hasn’t been sending more tourists to Cuba, how come total number has been growing?

Latin American countriesThe chart for the Latin American countries seems to suggest a possible answer. Tourism from those countries has been on the rise for the same period. As the emerging economies in Latin America grow, and middle classes grow and have more access to credit for consumption, Latin Americans are traveling more.

Thus Cuba’s stats for numbers share similar patterns as other countries within the region. Peru, Colombia, Chile, Brazil and Mexico, just to name a few, they have all reported the increasing arrival of Latin American tourists.

Will that be the case by the end of 2014, after the impact over these economies of the Chinese economic slowdown?

Recent patterns for Cuban Immigration to the USA

Posted: May 28, 2014 by jennroig in Miscellaneous
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I am really loving this Data Journalism Course. Here I am bringing more data into context. For this post I gathered a some numbers from the 2012 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, published by the Department of Homeland Security in July 2013.

Note: Not that I could scrape any data, because it’s difficult from a PDF. If someone knows a faster way, I’ll appreciate the clue.

My newest chart puts into perspective some figures referred to the arrival of Cubans to the USA, and their later adjust of status to legal permanent  residents (LPR), between 2003 and 2012. I landed in Philly on October 2012. So I am one fraction of those numbers. (If you actually clic on the link to the chart, the numbers will be there and you’ll get more detailed info).

chart immigration

I find some patterns that contradict my initial thoughts.

LPR Status: Legal Permanent Resident Status stand out with the highest numbers because they are the sum of: 1. Cubans that won the migration lottery, 2. Cubans that come as direct relatives of US Citizens, 3. the refugees and asylum seekers that arrived at least a year ago, 4. those who came as non-immigrant who decided to stay and wait a year and a day to request adjustment of status.

In a perfect world, the numbers will show that specific pattern, but real life is messier. Bureaucracy and human behavior challenge maths. On the one hand, applications can take different times to process, variations depend on the office that processes each case, the time of the year, the number of actual applicants, etc. On the other, humans are full of surprises. I know a Cuban who took 2 months passed his deadline of one year plus one day residing in the country, before sending his application.

– Naturalization: Cubans don’t hurry to naturalize as US Citizens, at least they delay it more than I expected. I knew older generations of Cubans are still linked to their Cuban roots, and try to avoid naturalizing as a resource to preserve somehow that Cuban identity. But younger generations -which I would think are the bulk of immigrants for recent years- are more practical, less romantic, and in general makes way more sense to become a citizen of the USA as soon as possible. But if you follow the yellow line, and compare it to the blue line four years before, it will show that the number of Cubans who got their LPR status is much higher. The fact that I’m indicating to count back four years will strike many of you. Well, there’s something called the Cuban Adjustment Act (CAA) that adjust my status as LPR in this country to the date I actually arrived, not the date I applied for documentation or was actually granted the LPR card. But that’s a story for another day.

It is interesting that the number of those obtaining LPR status is declining since 2008, while the number of naturalized Cubans has been steadily increasing, with that spike in 2008. I wonder whether there was any influence from the presidential elections that year. Could that yes-we-can spirit influence over Cubans who felt compelled to become Americans?

– Refugees arrivals & Apprehensions: In a report from 2009, immigration specialist Ruth Ellen Wasem points out that most apprehensions happen in the open sea. Few Cubans are caught crossing the borders, Mexican or Canadian. That remains true today. I would really like to know something I could not find in the numbers, how many of those refugees actually succeeded in crossing the Florida Strait?

What are the odds for a Cuban who intends to “sail” his/her way to the USA to actually make it?

– Refugees vs I94: It is even more revealing to find out that more Cubans are arriving with non-immigrant status than those who come as refugees. I am one of those I94, as I was granted a visa to come for a Seminar at the Wharton School of Business. But the majority of those Cubans are relatives to LPRs or Cuban Americans that come invited by their families. Some of them stay, many of them go back.

To finish the post, I also compiled data about different bases Cubans use to support their claims to become LPRs.  From a total of 32.820 Cubans that were granted LRP in 2012 – which you can see in the previous chart- that number breaks down into 917 family sponsored (the family member doesn’t necessarily has to be naturalized as US citizen), 3.402 Cubans  who were immediate relatives of US Citizens, 28.346 refugees and asylees, 74 applied for “diversity” – which I have no clue what it is-, employment based is 13, so insignificant that the pie didn’t see it, and that weird item “other” that sums 14.

Cubans LPR 2012

The Euphemism for Suicide in Cuba

Posted: May 27, 2014 by jennroig in Commentary, English
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As I keep training myself to better understand data, and then learn to use some tools to visualize it, as part of the Data Journalism Course offered by the European Journalism Center (EJC), I thought I would dig -or rather only scratching the surface- on the issue of suicide in Cuba.

I’ve been told and I have repeated myself that Cuba’s level of suicides could be compared to those of Nordic countries, implying that it was very high. However, my findings contradict my preconceptions. One more evidence that one should always look for the information before spontaneously repeating stuff without making sure of its accuracy.

Thus, my first finding shows that Cubans, nor the Scandinavians, are the most suicidal people.

To provide some perspective about global trends, Greenlandics, or whatever the name is for that nationality, are the those with the highest tendency to end their own lives. Then Asian countries such as China -excluding Taiwan- or Japan. For some reason I can’t guess, Guyana and Suriname are in that same scale. But not the French Guyana… I’ll appreciate any clue on the matter, otherwise I could think the Dutch and British influence was really bad on those colonies. I’m again running to conclusions… These countries are followed by Russians and then it’s Cuba’s turn, along Scandinavia, South Africa, Uruguay, USA, Spain and Finland among others… If we believe this map, Danes, Swedes and Norwegians are even less suicidal than Cubans, despite the all that suffering for the abundance of rain and sun shortage.

Second thing I learned is that in Cuba, official statistics do not name “suicide” by its name. An euphemism is used, something that would translate into English as “Self-Inflicted Injuries”. That’s very tuned to our habit of ignoring reality and trying to sugarcoat out problems. There’s a very good essay by Cuban author Jorge Mañach –Indagación al Choteo– that criticizes our habit of creating jokes about serious issues, and specially mocking people who speak out about problems in serious terms. Mañach argues it is a sign of underdevelopment, something that constantly limit the Cuban society of facing the causes of their problems and therefore finding and implementing solutions. Now I’m running to digress…

This is the chart I created to show the 10 main causes of mortality in Cuba. (The chart looks way better than the table, but for some reason I can’t embed it so you should really clic on the link).

Causes Units/Year
2009 2010 2011
Heart diseases 22225 23904 22178
Lethal tumors 21316 22294 21740
Cerebrovascular diseases 9401 9789 8641
Influenza and pneumonia 5320 4988 5469
Accidents 4785 4830 4663
Chronic Lower respiratory tract diseases 3116 3271 3471
Diseases of arteries, arterioles and capillaries 2573 2727 2543
Diabetes mellitus 2370 2680 2236
Self-Inflicted Injuries 1472 1557 1519
Cirrhosis and other chronic liver diseases 1087 1202 1061

Source: ONE

Numbers here bring good news and bad news. The number of suicides is high. And it’s sad that it is included among the 10 most frequent ways Cubans die. One could ask many questions. Why do Cubans -increasingly teenagers, which is terrible and worrying- commit suicide? Another interesting angle is political suicide.

Table created with Google spreadsheets

Table created with Google spreadsheets

Still, numbers are not as high as I initially expected, given all I’ve read and heard about the matter. Moreover, the trend is to increase, but not so dramatically. I will try to find newer stats to confirm.

I think the most ironically sad number in that chart is how many people die from heart diseases, within a population that sells to the world the image of lively music, nice beaches, awesome healthcare system… Why such burden on our heart?

Internet access in Cuba – ONE’s Data

Posted: May 26, 2014 by jennroig in Articles, English
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These days I’m taking an online course in Data Journalism organized by the European Journalism Center (EJC). So far, it feels like the professors are telling me obvious things that I wasn’t able to deduce by myself. What I mean is: they are doing a great job explaining in very simple, down-to-Earth terms, contents about the convergence between numbers and stories that Data Journalism is.  So, I’m really enjoying this experience.

Today I was playing around with some stats from the Cuban National Statistics Office -Yes, the numbers are official and the office is government run, so it’s up to the reader the extent to which the data can be believable.

I used a free tool made available by Datawrapper:

The table is here.

Internet Accessibility in Cuba. – This data is made available by the Cuban National Stats Office (ONE)

Year Total Internet Accounts Total Internet Users
1998 3,455 22 694
1999 2,882 42 159
2000 2,996 73 164
2001 6,581 122 366
2002 8,015 205 768
2003 10,947 25 109
2004 10,156 621 719
2005 11,023 71 552
2006 12,325 809 665
2007 14,281 1 002,139
2008 19,227 1 291,965
2009 24,888 1 733,111
2010 30,373 2 072,061
2011 40,071 2 701,279
2012 40,644 3 851,278

To be notice: this isn’t breaking news: Access to Internet in Cuba ranks among the lowest in the world. Internet navigation is censored (not on the table), but limitation to access is another form of censorship. Remember the story about the submarine Internet cable that should connect Venezuela and Cuba improving bandwidth and speed? No? Don’t bother trying to remember, it hasn’t made any difference so far.

So, this table shows with numbers something that Cubans know by living their lives: internet accounts are scarce, and there are a bunch of internet users per internet account. This is because most of access in Cuba happens in the workplace -newsrooms, research facilities, government institutions, Hotels, some Universities. There are households with Internet access, but there must be always strong reasons to be entitled to one. Access hasn’t been extensively commercialized, unless for foreign corporations which are anyway shared 51% by the Cuban government. There was at some point the chance to buy an account, but prices were prohibited. Still, pirate Internet accounts are part of the landscape, but those are difficult – impossible – to track in numbers.