Chavez orders Hilton hotel purchase in Venezuela (Hilton)

Five stars on Margarita Island. Don't know what to make of this yet. Will have to wait to see what the Hilton people say.










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CARACAS, Venezuela -- President Hugo Chavez has ordered his government to buy a Hilton-run hotel on Venezuela's Margarita Island.

snips ---


Chavez issued a decree last week ordering the "forced acquisition" of the Margarita Hilton & Suites and its marina. The decree clears the way for Chavez's government to expropriate the hotel. It's unclear how much Venezuela will pay or how soon.

Chavez last month hosted a summit at the hotel with leaders including Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, and suggested the hotel could become the headquarters of a new bloc of African and South American nations.

The Venezuela-based company Inversiones Pueblamar CA, listed as one of the hotel's owners, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Another company listed as an owner, Desarrollos MBK CA, could not be reached for comment.

Officials at the McLean, Virginia, headquarters of Hilton Worldwide, which manages the hotel, did not immediately return a call and e-mail seeking comment.

Margarita Island is one of Venezuela's main tourist destinations, and the hotel has more than 300 rooms and suites, some 150 timeshares, plus restaurants, a casino, souvenir shops and a marina.

The decree said the resort, once expropriated, will fall under the government's Tourism Ministry.

full article
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/10/13/business-lt-venezuela-hilton_6996791.html

Chavez orders Hilton hotel purchase in Venezuela
10/13/2009, 4:46 p.m. CDT
JORGE RUEDA
The Associated Press

(AP) — CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez has ordered his government to buy a Hilton-run hotel on Venezuela's Margarita Island.

Chavez issued a decree last week ordering the "forced acquisition" of the Margarita Hilton & Suites and its marina. The president's order was reported by Venezuelan media Tuesday, after being published in the Official Gazette on Friday.

The decree clears the way for Chavez's government to expropriate the hotel. It's unclear how much Venezuela will pay or how soon.

~snip~
Karla Visconti, a spokeswoman for Hilton Worldwide, the company that manages the hotel, said it is analyzing the move to determine how its interest in the hotel will be affected.

The hotel "remains a member of the Hilton system of hotels, and welcomes guests with the same level of service they have come to enjoy," Visconti said in an emailed statement from Miami, Florida.

Margarita Island is one of Venezuela's main tourist destinations, and the hotel has more than 300 rooms and suites, some 150 timeshares, plus restaurants, a casino, souvenir shops and a marina.

The decree said the resort, once expropriated, will fall under the government's Tourism Ministry.

Chavez has carried out a series of nationalizations in recent years, buying up companies in sectors including telecommunications, electricity and construction. The government has also increased its ownership of hotels, although most in the country are still privately owned.

Another Hilton-managed hotel in Caracas changed its name to the Alba Caracas in 2007 after the government, which already owned the building, took over management when Hilton's concession expired.

http://www.nola.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/business-43/1255471878284650.xml&storylist=new_topstories

Will await until further explanation of why the Ven. gov. took this action. Will check out Spanish from Ven. later.

:hi:

to find articles to post. Good grief!

They apparently don't know or care that they are outing themselves with Breitbart links.

It would be great hearing something written closer to "home" on some of these stories. Not too much to trust with the wire services.

Did you ever hear there's a writer who generally stays in his hotel room and grabs stories from Globovision in Caracas? I think he's with Reuters, can't remember. Discussed a couple of years ago or so.

but the first guy that came to mind was Simon "Sez" Romero of the NYT. :rofl:

Breitbart? Had never heard of it (him?) but reading comments from others seems to be highly unreliable.

Poked around and found this:

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The assets will be held by the state tourism corporation Venetur, which reports to the Tourism Ministry, as part of an “urgent” effort to boost “the social development side of the tourism and hotel industries in Nueva Esparta state,” the Gazette said.

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Ventur already runs several luxury hotels and its mission statement says it is to foments tourism as a strategic industry, to promote national and international tourism and to include all social strata of Venezuela.


Here are some of the luxury hotels already run by Ventur of the Tourism Ministry

http://www.venetur.gob.ve/index.php?val=ho

http://english.eluniversal.com/2009/10/13/en_eco_esp_venezuelan-govnt-or_13A2888731.shtml

someone asked for a source "closer to home"

lets have business build nice things and then take them away.

Suspected that there was more to the misleading AP story and all that frenzy over on LBN was for naught.

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Tourism Minister Pedro Morejón today revealed:

-- The majority of shares in the Hotel Margarita Hilton have been in the hands of the Venezuelan government the past 14 years, since the banking crisis of 1995. (This would have been five years before Hugo Chavez was first elected.)

-- The Hilton chain had a contract to administer the hotel that expired yesterday (Oct. 13).

-- So the government acted yesterday to acquire the rest of the shares (100 percent.)

-- All timeshare contracts will be respected.

-- The government has 15 working days to compile information regarding the financial and physical state of the hotel complex.

-- The information is necessary because the hotel is in a state of deterioration and Hilton "utilized the concession in an inappropriate manner."

-- A vice president of the Hilton chain arrived today in Margarita to finalize the transfer of the hotel's administration.

-- The administration of the hotel will be integrated into the government's tourism system, to benefit more Venezuelans.

Spanish from Telsur:

http://www.telesurtv.net/noticias/secciones/nota/59597-NN/mayoria-accionaria-de-hotel-margarita-hilton-pertenecia-al-estado-venezolano-desde-hace-14-anos/

:rofl:

Just read that the 400 workers at the hotel are happy and hope they will now get benefits that were not given them under the Hilton administration. Tourism minister met with them today and guaranteed the workers will not lose their jobs.

lol

Too funny. Another classic DU Chavez moment. :)

These liars must never sleep, working so hard to keep people ignorant so they'll buy the swill they're pushing to right-wing drooling idiots.

This is fascinating.

Thank you for helping conscientious DU'ers get the picture right. It's not an easy task when there are so many liars trying to muddy the waters.

would just all of a sudden take over a luxury hotel and I wondered about the reason when I posted the story yesterday.

Now it turns out it was nationalized FIVE years before Chavez even came on the scene.

As for the AP reporters, I think it is sheer incompetence. Had they asked "why," and "why now" they may have discovered the information that was available on the Internet about the hotel's nationalization in 1995.

But I think the Ven. government was remiss too because the decree apparently did not give any background.

Enough for today. Good night.

So glad you discovered this "little detail" yesterday, rabs, or we'd STILL be in the dark about the elements of this situation. Thank you.

Venezuela begins takeover of Hilton-run hotel
Associated Press
2009-10-15 05:32 AM

President Hugo Chavez's government began taking over management of a Hilton-run hotel on Venezuela's Margarita Island on Wednesday.
Tourism Minister Pedro Morejon said a 20-year concession granted to the company has expired and the government "has taken legitimate control of an asset that belongs to all the people of Venezuela."

Chavez issued a decree last week ordering the "forced acquisition" of the Margarita Hilton & Suites and its marina, though news of the edict did not surface until Tuesday.

Morejon said the government has held majority ownership of the hotel since 1995, when a banking crisis forced many of the hotel's shareholders to sell their assets to the state.

It was not immediately clear what assets Hilton owns within the hotel complex, but the decree forces it to sell whatever it has. Officials have not said how much Venezuela will pay in compensation, or when.

Representatives for Hilton Worldwide did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. A spokeswoman said Tuesday that the company was analyzing the move to determine how its interest in the hotel will be affected.

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