Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz foresees more “business opportunities” on the island with the Kempinski luxury hotel group. In a meeting held This Thursday in Havana with Bernold Schroeder, president of the Board of Directors of this company, Marrero negotiated the expansion of the group in Cuba.
Qualified by Marrero as a “high standard” German company, Kempinski already has two establishments in the Cuban capital: the Gran Hotel Manzana, opened in 2017 with five plus stars, and the Gran Hotel Bristol, which opened its doors in 2020.
Despite the optimistic tone of the meeting, a recent tour of 14ymedio The hotel cartography of Havana revealed that the Manzana hotel was undergoing repairs, among excavators and without customers, while the Bristol, after a brief opening, was closed to the public.
Bernold Schroeder, the manager who met Marrero, has been part of Kempinski since 2017 and has led the company since 2020. According to the official page of the company, Schroeder promoted the growth of the group in Asia and Europe, which earned him promotion to his position, and he has been largely responsible for the rapprochement with Cuba.
In 2019, the Gran Manzana Kempinski hotel was included by Donald Trump in the List of Restricted Cuban Entities, an inventory of companies that could be sued by the US justice for profiting from properties expropriated after the 1959 Revolution, although several companies registered in the Union Union have legal protections against this mechanism.
In the midst of the resounding crisis that Cuba is going through, the link between the Cuban government and a high-caliber hotel company like Kempinski arouses several controversies
All these companies were managed or directed by Gaesa, the administration group of the Armed Forces, then directed by the recently deceased General Luis Alberto Rodríguez-López Calleja.
In the midst of the resounding crisis that Cuba is going through, the link between the Cuban government and a high-caliber hotel company like Kempinski arouses several controversies. On the one hand, it is questioned that the government administration concentrates on opening unnecessary projects, considering the moderate number of tourists who enter Cuba, in addition to being excessively expensive.
Marrero, who served from 2004 to 2019 as Minister of Tourism and was part of Gaesa’s administrative apparatus, personally handles dealings with large companies, while the head of that portfolio, Juan Carlos García Granda, occupies a secondary place in these businesses.
Reproducing tropical topics and clichés, Kempinski announces Havana as a “city frozen in time, paused,” where people “take their time.” The Cuban government has not offered additional information about the projects that the German company plans to carry out or where they will be located.
The Kempinski group was founded in 1897, and today manages 79 five-star establishments in some thirty countries. On the island, in addition to the Manzana and Bristol hotels, with 246 and 162 luxury rooms, respectively, the company has opened the Cayo Guillermo Resort Kempinski since 2019, located in the north of the province of Ciego de Ávila.
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