Cuba has authorised its state-run tourism industry to contract out lodgings, meals, excursions and other activities to private businesses in a boost to a growing “non-state” sector.

While the government has allowed some state contracting to private businesses since 2012, up until now the tourism industry was off limits.

Tourism is the country’s largest industry, attracting 2.8 million visitors in 2012 with revenues approaching $3 billion (€2.2 billion).

The new regulations, published on Wednesday in the official gazette (www.gacetaoficial.cu), authorise state-run tourism agencies to use the more than 5,000 bed and breakfasts and 1,700 private restaurants now operating in the communist-run country, as well as private entertainment and transportation.

Further, hotels and other tourism facilities can contract with private businesses to provide meals for workers, gardening and other services.

“Cuba’s tourism has been stuck in a ‘state provides all’ framework for years,” said Paul Webster Hare, former British ambassador to Cuba, who currently lectures on international relations at Boston University.

“As a service industry, small and imaginative often attracts tourists better than the ‘one size fits all,’ which has been a feature of the way the big Cuban state- and military-owned companies have run the sector,” he said.

Tania Rodriguez, who rents out rooms in the Colonial district of Havana, applauded the measure as key to continued growth of the tourism industry and as a way to improve quality and variety.

“The private sector has provided quality and comfort for tourists who have visited for many years,” she said. “I think we are essential if Cuba is going to continue to attract tourists.”