CARACAS (Reuters) – President Hugo Chavez’s government said on Wednesday it was taking control of a landmark hotel mangaged by Hilton on Margarita island in another nationalization by socialist-run Venezuela.
Chavez’s decade-old government has pursued an aggressive nationalization policy — principally in the oil, telecommunications, electricity, metal and land sectors — but has made few incursions into Venezuela’s tourism industry.
Chavez hosted the likes of Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi at the 280-room hotel last month for a summit of African and South American leaders.
Complaining his government had to ask permission to make accommodation and security arrangements for the summit, Chavez said he decided to take the hotel away from its local owners, who were members of Venezuela’s traditional elite.
“I said ‘let’s expropriate it’, and it’s expropriated. And I am going to change the name of the Margarita Hilton. I’m going to put a local name. Because that Hilton brand is international, it’s not from here,” he said on state TV.
Accusing the Hilton group of neglecting the hotel complex, which also has 54 suites and 154 timeshare suites, an official decree said the measure was due to “the need to boost tourism” on Margarita, one of Venezuela’s prime Caribbean destinations.
Tourism Minister Pedro Morejon said the government, which is working out ownership stakes after taking over two local companies with shares in the hotel, would honor employees’ contracts and tourism bookings.
He accused Hilton, whose concession to manage the hotel ran out this week, of leaving installations in a “high state of deterioration.”
