The 36 of Sol Palmeras
“You will continue to be the benchmark: because the quality and spirit of service that you carry in your DNA cannot be improvised; they are carried in the heart. Even though I am no longer here, I still celebrate each of your triumphs as if they were my own. Stay united, protecting that mystique that makes you unique. The hotel will once again be number one because behind it is the most human and professional team on the island.”
Varadero.- Sol Palmeras, the first mixed-use hotel established in Cuba, is also number one as a National Vanguard, the highest category of the emulation system instituted to reward performances that optimally combine economic and labor union requirements as supreme conditions.
With that record, the Varadero facility, founded by Fidel Castro Ruz on May 10, 1990, celebrates 36 years of successful operations — a moment that also marks the beginning of operations for the Spanish company Meliá Internacional.
“It is a special gift to our eternal Commander, who at that inaugural ceremony asked us to be the inspiration so that other hotels would have good quality in service provision and tourism would progress, and that is how it has been,” said Arnaldo Díaz Hiedra, general secretary of the union bureau.
Unfortunately, for the second time in its history, the hotel is celebrating its birthday without clients. It happened during COVID-19, and it is happening now. Hopefully it will never happen again, because if any hotel in Cuba should not close — among those of the Meliá company, among those of the Cubanacán joint venture, among those in Varadero — it is Sol Palmeras, that symbol of Cuba’s Ministry of Tourism.
“We know that the hotel is going through a pause due to external circumstances, but the walls of Sol Palmeras know well what it means to resist and triumph. As someone who had the honor of managing this hotel, I want to remind you that the success that has always distinguished us was never a matter of luck; it was because you are the best team in Cuba,” Tomeu Alcina Busquets recently posted on his Facebook wall. He is the Spanish businessman who, when he was told he was going to the island to manage it, was presented with the facility as a “winning horse.”
Beloved by the people of Sol Palmeras-Cuba, the foreigner who spent the longest time at the helm of the hotel congratulated the men and women of a team of whom he said: “You will continue to be the benchmark: because the quality and spirit of service that you carry in your DNA cannot be improvised; they are carried in the heart. Even though I am no longer here, I still celebrate each of your triumphs as if they were my own. Stay united, protecting that mystique that makes you unique. The hotel will once again be number one because behind it is the most human and professional team on the island.”
Written by Eva Luna Acosta Armiñá
