May 16, 1997

FROM CUBA

TOURISM IN CAMAGUEY

CIEGO DE AVILA, May 13, 1997 (Agencia Patria).- Last April 24th, the hotel named Trip Cayo Coco closed its doors. This hotel, given a "five star" rating and owned by the Cuban hotel group Gran Caribe, opened its doors in 1993, and until last December, served as the standart bearer for the emerging and ambitious tourism plan in the northern side of the island.

With more than 400 rooms, the beautiful hotel was managed by Cubanacan S.A. corporation, in an administrative cooperation with Trip Hoteles, from Spain.

The reason for its closing is the lack of tourism, which, when faced by the Tourism Ministry, opted for leaving only the newer of the two hotels, with only 50 percent of the rooms booked.

The situation of discontent amongst the workers of the closed building reached such levels that, when faced with the imminence of a political problem in their hands, the tourism minister, Osmani Cienfuegos, went to the site himself and now the payrolls of both hotels have been joined and the workers have been assigned to work intermitently, in alternating weeks, paying them, of course, half their salary.

Another cause for discontent among the hotel workers is that the "incentive bag" has been eliminated. This bag represented an important supplement to the salary, because it contained several products such as oil, canned goods and other food stuffs, which helped their economies.

According to information handed down by accounting employees, this measure is to offset the fixed costs of running the enterprise due to the drastic drop in revenues.

Among those affected by this measure, the ones who were most affected were those hired for fixed terms, who were sent home until a solution could be reached. And a solution was reached. They will be sent to the sugar cane fields surrounding Bolivia mill, on the northern portion of the province.

According to the details of the offer, Cubanacan corporation is guaranteeing their transportation and food, but the salary will be that of a farm worker, and adjusted according to the output.

Their acceptance of this offer, and their attitude while there, will be taken into account when the high tourism season comes and they will decide who to call back from the fields. Most of these young people, who struggled so hard, and put forth such effort to be part of the staff at these luxury hotels, feel disappointed since many of them lack abilities to work in agriculture and they consider that due to the level of corruption and "sociolismo" at the hiring agency, some will be left behind when the season starts.

What is really noticeable in this case is that, in spite of the low arrival of tourists, something which is becoming common in Cayo Coco, they are building other hotels at the same site, like Pen~on, Las Terrazas and Villa Gregorio Dos.

Such is the pitiful situation of tourism in the eastern region of the country.

Reported by Ramon Alberto Cruz Lima.

Translated for CubaNet by Lourdes Arriete