Cuba’s first ultra luxury hotel opens in Havana
‘Gran Hotel Manzana’ really beautiful
HAVANA, May 23, (Agencies): Cuba’s first ultra luxury hotel opened its doors Monday in Havana, with guests paying up to $2,500 a night to stay in five-star comfort on the Communist island.
The “Gran Hotel Manzana,” part of the Swiss group Kempinski Hotels, is situated in the heart of the Cuban capital in front of the verdant gardens of Parque Central and the grand Alicia Alonso theater, home to the Cuban National Ballet.
Guests in each of the hotel’s 246 rooms, 50 of which are suites, have the pick of four bars and two restaurants and can take a swim in the rooftop infinity pool.
The European-style building first opened in 1917, before undergoing a complete renovation.
In order to deliver the project in time, the Cuban government was forced to accept the builders bringing hundreds of qualified workers from India, a rare move in a country that usually requires that only underpaid — and undermotivated — Cuban workers.
Now the hotel, jointly owned by Kempinski and the military-controlled Cuban tour operator Gaviota, charges between $440 and $2,485 a night.
“We appreciate hidden gems and this matches our philosophy,” Kempinski director Xavier Destribats told Cuban state television.
On the ground floor of the hotel, a shopping mall filled with high-end boutiques such as Versace, Lacoste and Montblanc sparked curiosity in a country where luxury was long ago banned under the iron-fisted rule of revolutionary leader Fidel Castro.
“The hotel is really beautiful, but here everything is terribly expensive. It’s not for the Cubans,” said Lidia Martinez, a 29-year-old housewife.
Leonardo Padilla, a salesman at Montblanc, admitted he had difficulty selling watches ranging from $1,775 to $4,500 in a country where the average wage is no more than $30.
Meanwhile, US online travel services company Expedia said on Tuesday it had started offering online booking for hotels in Communist-run Cuba, hoping to capitalize on a boom in tourism to the Caribbean island.
Expedia joins a dozen US airlines and cruise operators that have already ventured into the Cuban market since the United States announced a detente with its former Cold War foe in 2014 and eased travel and trade restrictions.
“I see a lot of potential. We are talking about the largest country in the Caribbean with significant hotel expansion plans,” Veronica Vega, Expedia area manager for Caribbean, said in an interview.
The number of visitors to Cuba rose 13 percent to a record 4 million in 2016, driven by a 74 percent jump in US travelers. A survey recently showed the number of American visitors alone could multiply sevenfold to 2 million by 2025.
Expedia’s move comes as US President Donald Trump’s administration conducts a full review of US policy toward Cuba. During his campaign, Trump had threatened to roll back the normalization of relations.
That does not seem to have dampened US interest in the Cuban market. Analysts and corporate executives said it was hard to imagine Trump, a former businessman, taking measures that would harm US companies already in Cuba.
US law still bans general tourism to Cuba, but former President Barack Obama’s administration allowed Americans to travel more easily to Cuba for educational, cultural and other authorized purposes without having to go on organized group tours.
Expedia said Americans would simply have to certify that their trips fell under one of the 12 categories of authorized travel.
“We are very excited about being able to facilitate travel and give people the independence to select their itinerary,” said Vega.
Expedia said it would offer both hotel and BnB options and that customers would be able to pay online at the time of booking.
Americans previously had to reserve Cuban hotels principally through travel agencies or tour groups.
Since 2015, American tourists have also been able to book properties in Cuba on Airbnb Inc. The online home-rental marketplace said last year the island had become its fastest growing market ever.
Expedia said that for US travelers, it was operating under a general license right for all travel service providers. For non-US travelers, it was operating under a specific license granted by the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control in December 2016.