A couple of Cuban tourists are prevented from staying at a hotel due to a 20-year age difference between them.

A couple of Cuban tourists was not admitted to the Gran Muthu Almirante Beach Hotel in Holguín due to the 20-year age difference between them.

The outrageous situation was reported by the 31-year-old woman, who recorded a video in the hotel lobby, outraged by the violation of her rights. The video was sent to the independent journalist.Yosmany Mayeta Labrada, who shared it through his/hersocial networksIt seems you haven't provided any text to translate. Please share the text you'd like me to translate.

"A young woman from Santiago de Cuba sent this video, in which she reports that she was not admitted to the Gran Muthu Almirante Beach Hotel in Holguín because her partner of 8 years is older than she is," explained the journalist in his post.

In the recorded message, the woman is heard protesting in the hotel lobby. “Here I am at the Gran Muthu Almirante Beach Hotel, supposedly 5 stars. They have not allowed me to check in with my partner of 8 years because, according to them, he is 20 years older than me and we are not married; it is a lack of respect,” she explained.

At the time of writing this note, the identity of the Cubans banned by the managers of the Indian hotel chain MGM Muthu Hotels, which has a strong presence in Cuba, is unknown.

The reason put forward by the staff of the Gran Muthu Almirante Beach constitutes a violation of the rights of both citizens and seems to come from a time when the discrimination of Cubans in international tourist accommodations was a common norm, responding to an official policy of the Cuban regime.

With 514 rooms spread across six blocks of buildings that open in a staggered horseshoe shape with views of Guardalavaca beach, the five-star Gran Muthu Almirante Beach hotel opened its doors to the public in July 2021, with rates of up to 7,827 CUP per night.

The Gran Muthu Almirante Beach Hotel was the first of the Cubanacán group in eastern Cuba and the seventh in the country for the Muthu Group. The corporate director of MGM Resorts International on the Island is Rafael López.

"We are going to open some hotels in Havana. The hotel in Holguín, the Gran Muthu Almirante Beach, has already opened and has given us very good results; we are going to open another hotel in Holguín with the Gaviota group. We are really very satisfied and want to continue expanding. We started with two hotels and are now practically at 10 hotels in Cuba," López declared in 2022 to Excelencias Cuba.

In 2019, the Indian tourism group inaugurated the Gran Muthu Rainbow Hotel in Cayo Guillermo, the first hotel exclusively for the LGBTQ+ community in Cuba. The resort is managed by MGM Muthu Hotels, but it belongs to Grupo Gaviota S.A. of the Cuban state monopoly GAESA, with business administration by the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR).

In February 2023, the Indian group and Gaviota inaugurated the Gran Muthu Habana Hotel, located at 3rd Avenue and 70th Street, in the Miramar neighborhood of Playa municipality. Situated in a privileged area of the Cuban capital, this hotel has a 5-star rating, features 27 floors, and offers 494 standard rooms, 16 junior suites, and five suites.

After years of prohibitions on domestic tourism and the inability of Cuban residents on the island to stay in hotels, the Cuban regime decided to promote national tourism in response to the decrease in foreign visitors and uncertainty in the tourism activity in the country due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

In a work meeting to analyze the priorities of the tourism industry in Cuba in 2021, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz insisted on "redesigning a strategy to boost national tourism."

In August 2023, dozens of Cubans reported the scam they suffered at the Santa María Music Fest, as upon arriving at Cayo Santamaría with their reservations made, they found that there had been an overbooking of rooms and the management of Hotel Gran Muthu Cayo Santa María did not offer solutions to the problem.

The chaos at the Gran Muthu hotel was also repeated at the Grand Aston Cayo Las Brujas Beach Resort & Spa, where there were protests from scammed customers. The packages offered for the stay included the hotels The One Gallery, Grand Sirenis, and Angsana, the latter embroiled in controversy after a letter from a hotel administrator circulated, asking not to accommodate Cubans.

Several hotels from the MGM Muthu Hotels group are on the "blacklist" of Cuban companies with which U.S. businessmen are prohibited from negotiating, a measure adopted by the Trump administration that includes more than 200 establishments "under the control of or acting on behalf of" Cuba's military, intelligence, and security services, according to the State Department.