Hotel Sol Palmeras returns to the path of the Vanguardias Nacionales.
Sol Palmeras, Cuba’s oldest mixed hotel, has just returned to the path of triumph after being proclaimed National Vanguard once again, an award it has already won 14 times.
Awarded by the National Secretariat of the Cuban Workers’ Trade Union (CTC), Sol Palmeras has been granted this relevant status when it is about to celebrate 34 years in operation, a cycle that began on May 10th, 1990, when Fidel Castro officially inaugurated the hotel.
Isdalis Rodríguez, second secretary of the national CTC, hands the banner to Antonio Herranz, deputy general manager of the hotel, and Arnaldo Díaz (first on the left). Photo by the author.
If something makes this hotel a singular place, it is the fact that around 15 percent of its tourists are repeat guests, many of whom have returned 30, 35, 40 times, something closely linked to the performance of the employees themselves, who with their kind treatment are the first promoters of bringing back here men and women they already consider part of the family.
Arnaldo Díaz Hiedra, secretary general of the union bureau, explains that this is due to the high quality standards achieved, despite the aging of a hotel plant that is constantly undergoing renovations to provide the client with new experiences.
Right now we are repairing a good part of the rooms, a program that plans to make them all more comfortable by the hotel’s 35th anniversary. The idea, he argues, is for guests to find something new every time they return to the hotel, which is managed under a joint administration contract between Cubanacán and Meliá.
The important thing here has been the fidelity in the quality-price ratio, that people feel that they received what they paid for, says Díaz Hiedra.
Canadians, Germans, English, Argentineans, French are among the main foreign markets, visitors seduced by the quality of the services provided and the star performance of the staff of a collective where almost one hundred percent of the workers express their desire to continue working in this facility, «and this is a consequence of the way we take care of our workforce, also characterized by stability,» said Arnaldo.
Mailen Alemañy, general secretary of the provincial bureau of the Hotel and Tourism Workers Union in Matanzas, unequivocally praises the results of the union’s organic operation at Sol Palmeras, an example for the rest of the labor collectives in tourism and in the country.
Among the more than 50 hotels in Varadero that are in top shape, there is a facility that stands out for the quality of its service, which has become a brand name.
Along with Sol Palmeras, five other hotels in Varadero deserved the top category of National Vanguard: Royalton Hicacos, Iberostar Selection Varadero, Meliá Las Américas and Meliá Las Antillas, from Cubanacán; the Meliá Internacional Varadero and Starfish Cuatro Palmas, the latter two from Gran Caribe.
Written by Eva Luna Acosta Armiñán.
