Posted on 09/02/2007 7:06:43 PM PDT by blam
Hilton becomes socialist, but prices stay same
By Jeremy McDermott, Latin America Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:21am BST 03/09/2007
It has been a landmark for the last 38 years, a point of navigation for taxi drivers and tourists alike, but now the Hilton Hotel in Caracas has been taken over by the state to become a "socialist tourism business".
"We want to put this hotel at the service of the people," said Eustacio Aguilera, the president of the Simon Bolivar Centre, the government cultural institution that owns the hotel. "Now everyone will have access to a great hotel and be able to enjoy it."
How the people will be able to afford a stay at the rechristened Hotel Alba Caracas is another question, as room prices will remain unchanged at £70 for the most simple rooms in a country where the average person lives on about £100 a month.
The word "alba" means dawn in Spanish and is also the acronym for a trade initiative which Mr Chavez hopes will make the region less dependent on trade with the United States.
Last week the 900-room hotel's operating licence expired and the government took it over, planning to take this flagship of international capitalism and turn it into a symbol of President Hugo Chavez's "Socialism of the 21st Century".
The takeover is just the latest example of nationalisation of key industries. In February telecommunications companies were taken over by the government and in May it was the turn of the key oil sector with the government taking majority control of all existing contracts and concessions.
The Hilton has refused to comment about the takeover, although it has no plans to abandon Venezuela where it has two other hotels.
Perhaps they're concerned that complaining would hasten the confiscation of their remaining Venezuelan properties.
Rates are gonna be reasonable, right....its Socialism.
Well down the road. Spent a day last year in Mexico City with some customers from Caracas, a really great group of guys. The news since from my Mexican "intermediary" is not good.
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