{"id":1487,"date":"2009-10-15T10:13:36","date_gmt":"2009-10-15T07:13:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/?p=1487"},"modified":"2022-09-28T20:58:14","modified_gmt":"2022-09-28T19:58:14","slug":"hilton-hotel-owners-hugo-chavez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/hilton-hotel-owners-hugo-chavez\/","title":{"rendered":"“Hilton hotel owners were cheeky”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Hilton<\/a>Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has said he seized the landmark Hilton hotel on Margarita Island because its owners dared to impose conditions on its use by his government to host a summit there last month.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“To hold the conference we had to ask for permission… and the owners tried to impose conditions on the revolutionary government. No way,” said Chavez.<\/p>\n

“So I said, ‘Let’s expropriate it.’ And now it’s been expropriated.”<\/p>\n

The Venezuelan government was already a majority shareholder in the Hilton on the Caribbean resort island when Chavez took it over on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

“The acquisition by force of the real estate, furnishings, and related assets… of the Margarita Hilton & Suites Hotel Complex, along with the Marina owned by Inversiones Pueblamar y Desarrollos MBK, have been ordered,” read a presidential decree in the official register.<\/p>\n

The sprawling complex, including 280 rooms, 210 suites, a casino, stores, restaurants, offices and meeting areas, as well as the adjoining marina, will be held by the state tourism corporation Venetur, which reports to the Tourism Ministry.<\/p>\n

The hotel, in northeastern Nueva Esparta state, was targeted for nationalization less than a month after it was used to host the South America-Africa Summit on September 26 and 27.<\/p>\n

The seizure was billed as part of an “urgent” effort to boost “the social development side of the tourism and hotel industries in Nueva Esparta state.”<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, the US-based Hilton chain said it was “evaluating” Venezuela’s seizure of one of its hotels. A Hilton spokeswoman told AFP that, in the meantime, the facility “remains a member of the Hilton system of hotels.”<\/p>\n

Venezuela’s Minister of Tourism, Pedro Morejon, on Wednesday said the Hilton and its facilities were in an “advanced state of disrepair” and that the government would refurbish them.<\/p>\n

“We’re going to socialize the hotel,” the minister told VTV television, adding that its future facilities would include a “training center for tourism.”<\/p>\n

He also said that all current Hilton Hotel employees would not be out of a job.<\/p>\n

“We’re going to change its name,” said Chavez. “We’ll give it a local sounding name because the Hilton brand is so international.”<\/p>\n

It is not the first time the Chavez government has checked into a Hilton and stayed for good.<\/p>\n

Caracas has already seized the Hilton in Caracas, re-christening it the Hotel Alba, a reference to the Venezuelan-led leftist regional alliance Alianza Bolivariana para las Americas.<\/p>\n

In the past four years, Venezuela has implemented the nationalization of what is sees as strategic industries, including electric utilities, cement, steel, oil services and banking.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has said he seized the landmark Hilton hotel on Margarita Island because its owners dared to impose conditions on its use by his government to host a summit there last month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"jnews_post_split":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[137],"tags":[8057],"class_list":["post-1487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sectoral","tag-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1487"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9437,"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1487\/revisions\/9437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}