Here is an article from AP that addresses this question. See my comments below.
October 9, 2000
HAVANA (AP) -- Tourism Minister Ibrahim Ferradaz said Cubans may not stay at international hotels on the island because the government wants to prevent inequalities between Cubans who can afford such hotel rooms and the majority who cannot.
"Cubans who have dollars cannot go to the hotels because not all (Cubans) can go," Ferradaz told reporters who asked about long-standing government policies that prevent Cubans from entering hotels and other tourism sites. "We defend equality."
Average Cubans were effectively banned from hotels and other tourism locales for many years because they were prohibited from carrying the American dollars that hotels, upscale restaurants and other tourism establishments charge.
The Cuban government legalized the use of dollars for all citizens in 1993 in a series of modest reforms aimed at helping the economy recovery from the collapse of the former Soviet Union -- once a main source of aid and trade.
Many Cubans now legally receive dollars as part of their salaries, as tips or from family remittances sent from abroad. But a large chunk of the population still has no dollar income and their average monthly government salaries are the equivalent of less than $15.
A select group of Cubans is allowed to stay in tourism hotels for free as a government reward for excellent government works. About 15 percent of hotel rooms on the island are set aside for such worker rewards, the minister said.
Tourism continues to be the major motor fueling economic growth on the Caribbean island, said Ferradaz. He projected that 1.8 million tourists would visit Cuba by year's end, almost 12 percent more than last year.
In a socialist democracy such as Cuba, equality and solidarity are guiding principles in any social or economic policy making. This is the opposite of the case in most capitalist societies where inequality and divisiveness are actually promoted in order to keep the corporate elite in power. In this example, we see how Cubans seek to maintain social equality and solidarity even in the face of the potentially corrupting influence of economic liberalization.
Another often cited example is the policy of the Cuban government to contract out workers to joint-ventures with foreign capitalists. Critics bemoan the fact that workers get only fraction of what is paid to the government for their labour and cannot negotiate directly with the foreign firm. Again, this policy seeks to minimize any unfair advantage that workers in these enterprises may have over those working in other sectors of the economy. It seeks to maintain social equality and solidarity. It also seeks to maximize the benefit to Cuban society as a whole, as the hard-currency income is used to subsidize health care, education and other social programs.
Seductive and misleading appeals for so-called independent unions, etc. often do not take into account Cuba's unique social and economic system. Rather than, for example, bargaining independently in smaller groups and often in competition with one another, Cuban workers have chosen a unified, nationwide approach that promotes social unity and prosperity for all. This, it seems to me, is no less democratic than the fragmented and socially divisive approach to trade unions favoured by many capitalist regimes.