The management of the Grand Packard hotel in Havana informed one of its workers of the “definitive separation from the entity” for speaking out against the “socialist system and the Constitutional Reform” in Cuba.
The hotel is managed in part by the Gaesa business conglomerate, of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), a group led by Raúl Castro's former son-in-law, General Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja.
In a document signed by the hotel's Human Resources department, employee Jorge Félix Vázquez Acosta, who worked in the position of energy saving and rational use technician, was notified of the dismissal.
Gaesa manages the luxury facility together with the Spanish group Iberostar Hotels & Resorts, one of which has long maintained business relations with the Havana regime. On Monday, the hotel manager, Frida Arias Sánchez, expelled Jorge Félix Vázquez Acosta, 26.
The dismissal resolution, which reached the editorial office of Cybercuba and other media, indicated that it was due to “issuing criteria against our socialist system,” in addition to highlighting that it issued criteria against the Business Administration Group (GAESA).
According to the manager of the Grand Packard Havana, who signs the letter, Vázquez's actions “undermine the political-ideological state” that “should prevail” among the hotel workers. The document takes as reference “statements from workers who serve as witnesses to the indiscipline” and a “report from the investigative commission.”
He highlights, however, that the worker "had never been the subject of accusations by his immediate superior, obtaining good grades in the performance evaluations."
But he points out that, by “denigrating” Gaesa's role, the administration lost the trust that had been placed in him, “necessary and required for all civil workers of the Cuban commercial company Grupo de Turismo Gaviota S.A.”
Inaugurated in 2018, in the presence of the Cuban ruler Miguel Díaz-Canel and the now Prime Minister Manuel Marrero, The Grand Packard Habana is the second five-star plus hotel in Cuba, a condition also held in the Cuban capital by the Gran Hotel Manzana Kempinski , luxury facilities that express a strong contrast with the surrounding architecture, with multiple buildings in danger of collapsing, or that have already collapsed, causing the death of several people.
The Grand Packard Havana It has 321 rooms with special services and first-class finishes.. Prices to spend a night in them vary from 260 euros (301 CUC) for a double room to more than 1,300 (1,505 CUC) for the Star Prestige Packard Suite, one of the jewels of the facility. These are grotesque prices in a country where the average monthly salary barely exceeds $40.
A glass access door, the spa, the jacuzzi and a swimming pool for 130 people are other attractions of the building located on the emblematic Paseo del Prado, a short distance from the Historic Centre. Likewise, the building can boast privileged views of Havana's Malecon.
As a heritage detail, the construction maintained the original façade of a building inaugurated in 1911 as the Biscuit hotel, which in 1931 acquired the Packard hotel in allusion to the American automobile brand.
The expulsion of the worker from said center occurs in the midst of a context marked by adversity, in which a decline of the Cuban economy is seen, due largely to the coronavirus crisis and the drastic reduction in international tourist activity, which at this time usually experiences an increase in the Caribbean region.
Europe, one of the main sources of tourism to the archipelago, has been the area hardest hit by the pandemic, along with the United States. The world's major economies have been severely affected.
However, the context has not caused the regime to relent in its repressive acts against the population, wielding, for example, the appeal of the controversial Decree Law 370, also known as Gag, due to its implications for the freedom of expression of Cuban citizens.
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