First LGBTI+ Hotel Is Inaugurated in Havana

MADRID, Spain. – The Telégrafo Axel Hotel, owned by Gaviota S.A. Tourism Group, will be inaugurated this Tuesday as the first hotel of the LGBTI+ community in Cuba’s capital.

Located on Prado Boulevard in La Habana Vieja, where the Telégrafo Hotel once stood, it has 63 guest rooms, a restaurant, a bar lounge, fitness centers, and a sky bar and swimming pool on the roof terrace.

The four-star hotel is very close to tourism’s points of interest, such as El Floridita and the Bodeguita del Medio.

Axel Hotels Communication and Marketing Director, Silvia Pérez Viñolas, stated about the hotel’s opening that, “Freedom and respect are the most important values, wherein inclusion and diversity are promoted above all. For that reason, we reflect our philosophy in all our services and personnel.”

Founded in 2003, Axel Hotels is an international hotel chain, a subsidiary of Axel Corporation, that targets the LGTN+ community with installations in Barcelona, Madrid, Ibiza, Saint Sebastian, Grand Canary, Miami and Berlin.

The military consortium GAESA had announced the opening of the Telégrafo Axel Hotel in June 2021. The announcement sparked negative reactions from many people, especially among activists of the LGTB+ community in Cuba.

At that time, Raúl Soublett, founder of the Afro-Cuba Alliance, pronounced himself against the priorities of the Cuban government, namely hotels instead of more civil rights.

“Why don’t you guarantee laws that can protect us from discrimination, from violence,” he implored.

Trans activist Kiriam Gutiérrez questioned “how many Cuban LGBTIQA+ will be able to afford just one night at this hotel?

“It’s because of things like this that Cuba’s LGBTIQA+ community must organize itself from the vantage point of independent activism, because we don’t want hotels, nor discotheques, nor restaurants, nor bars. We want rights, we want same-sex marriage, we want assisted reproduction for same-sex couples, we want protection for trans children, we want laws that penalize homophobia and transphobia, we want a gender identity law, a Trans Law,” Gutiérrez added.

The first LGBTI-friendly hotel in Cuba opened in 2019 in Cayo Guillermo, one of the country’s principal keys.

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Fuente Cubanet.org