Given the Low Quality of Food in Cuba Hotels Must Import
the Spanish hotel company Meliá Will import its products
The regime’s proposal to buy food products from farmers did not prosper due to the shortages from low production.
HAVANA TIMES – The Cuban Government’s inability to meet the demand for the most basic products for its citizens also affects its trading partners. The large hotel companies installed on the Island have had to import, for years, part of the products they provide in their facilities. Since the escalation of the crisis after the pandemic, however, companies went from importing in order to “maintain luxury” to importing out of necessity.
The last to join the list was the Spanish chain Meliá, which at the beginning of this year announced that it would create, with the permission of the State, its own import company. It was not until this Wednesday, however, that it revealed Mesol’s specific purpose: to supply its hotels with linen, sports and artistic equipment, kitchen utensils and even food, beverages and cleaning items.
The transport, distribution and storage of the products are also borne by the company, which for now has its main supplier in Spain but is looking for other suppliers in Latin America and the Caribbean, where invoices will be less expensive.
The “appropriate purchase and delivery flows,” the statement adds, will help maintain the quality of the service, diminished by the lack of variety in the food, the low quality of the meals and the defective cleanliness, common complaints among those staying on the Island.
Other companies have taken similar measures. At the beginning of last year, when the Indian MGM Muthu Hotels reached 7,000 rooms on the Island, its adviser explained a plan to keep all the facilities supplied. “We are going to have two importers in Cuba to bring in products, not only beverages, but everything. It can be furniture and fittings, everything. We are already creating two companies for this,” he said in January, and in May, an importer from Portugal was already a reality.
“We have a trading company to import all kinds of supplies from Portugal. We are growing little by little, sin prisa pero sin pausa* — without haste but without pause,” he added.
In 2022, the Government granted Canadian Blue Diamond a license – accompanied by the exclusive management of 11 complexes in Cayo Largo del Sur – to bring in the necessary supplies to maintain them. Nutella, butter and ketchup, not very available in Cuba, were some of the products promised by the vice president of Sunwing Travel Group, owner of the hotel. “The right to import and to be able to control quality is a great thing,” he said.
That same year Granma published an article criticizing the hotels that imported much of the products they needed in their daily management, including food, when, it said, they could get them in Cuba. “Importation cannot be the solution, the country must be able to provide hotels with domestic products and thus ensure attention to the growing arrival of visitors, which favors economic chains,” it complained.
The text tried to explain the successful association between hotel companies and the producers of the locales where they are installed but forgot to point out that the contracts are always made through the Ministry of Agriculture, which lowers payments to the farmers and discourages them, at the same time that it fails to comply with its commitments and is unreliable in its business dealings with the hotels. companies.
In 2017, Iberostar received a permit to create a joint import business with the Cuban Logística Hotelera del Caribe (LHC). The Spanish chain did not clarify what it intended to import but explained that the company, located in the Special Development Zone of Mariel, would be dedicated to the wholesale trade of products for the hospitality industry and that Iberostar would not be the only beneficiary.
With tourism stalled in numbers similar to those of last year, in addition to the discredit that the Island has suffered internationally for its political and economic situation, companies like Meliá have decided to take the reins and try to improve the statistics of their hotels on their own. In 2023, Cuba was the only one of its destinations where revenues fell and hotel occupancy was lower than expected.
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*Translator’s note: Sin prisa pero sin pausa — without haste but without pause — became a signature phrase of Raul Castro in reference to ‘fixing’ the problems of Cuba, after he assumed the presidency on the death of his brother, Fidel.
Originally published in Spanish by 14ymedio and translated by Regina Anavy for Translating Cuba.
CUBAs government is shining bright in INCOMPETENTS
Cuba needs major changes in food production and food processing and transport. It will cost at least 3 times as much to import food and other basic items that tourists and other need than if Cuba had given the farmers and others the economic freedom to run a open and fair system
Look what food in Mexico costs at both the wholesale and retail prices compared to Cuba. Look at what many manufacturers in Mexico and India can provide items at when they get access to electricity 23 hours a day on average and have backup generator and a unlimited supply of fuel and other items needed. There is no point to build more hotels until Cuba solves the supply issues in my opinion. If the Cuban gov was to change the economic model it has the ability to be a major source for people who need private medical services and nursing home services because of the number of trained people in medical care in my opinion.
Good luck attracting visitors. Word of mouth is most valuable, visitors will tell other potential visitors. I love traditional Cuban meals, I’ve had the best favourable meals off the resorts. I wish Cuba all the best.
EASY ANSWER: Sign over a few square kilometers of decent land to Vietnamese and
Chinese consortia and let them employ local people at decent wages and produce food good
enough for the hotels catering to foreigners.
GASTRONOMIC NOTE: The apogee of Canadian cuisine is *poutine* – – a large plate of fried
potatoes smothered in melted cheese . . . the ideal lumberjack’s breakfast
The low quality of food in Cuba plus its unavailability is a major problem for the Cuban tourist industry. Of course, the major blame for this disastrous state of affairs lies with the State government. The State’s inability to produce sufficient food and to timely transport this food to hotels is astounding.
With the great quantity of agricultural potential on this island it is inconceivable how a government cannot get its native fresh fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy products to all the hotels strewn across the island? It is absolutely shameful.
Now, those hotel companies Spanish, Canadian, and Cuban, must import quality food into their respective hotels to meet the demand of their clientele. Without this stopgap action, Cuba risks losing many, many former and potential future tourists who will not pay valuable, hard earned, vacation dollars to be treated as second class visitors.
So, now hotels must import food. How is that a solution? Tourists whether they visit Cuba or Cyprus, or Timbuktu, want to taste and indulge in the native dishes the host culture has to offer. Take fruits, for example. If a tourist is so inclined, there is nothing better than a fresh, sweet, savoury Cuban mango or Cuban papaya for dessert. Well, unfortunately, for those dessert inclined tourists, none are available.
So, now what’s the alternative? What is available is canned, and obviously imported, canned fruit cocktail, canned peaches and canned pears, mostly fruit native to geographic regions other than Cuba. And, the tourists have to pay top dollar to eat this imported canned food. Tourists will not tolerate this.
As the article clearly points out: “Importation cannot be the solution, the country must be able to provide hotels with domestic products and thus ensure attention to the growing arrival of visitors . . .” The solution is for hotels to bypass the inept State government and deal with individual producers directly. The hotels know what fresh products they require so they need to contract directly with suppliers they being farmers or farmer cooperatives. However, the State will not allow this innovative and market driven business initiative to flourish.
The article emphatically states “ . . . the contracts are always made through the Ministry of Agriculture, which lowers payments to the farmers and discourages them, at the same time that it fails to comply with its commitments and is unreliable in its business dealings with the hotels companies.”
So, if the Cuban Ministry of Agriculture doesn’t properly pay the farmers for their produce plus also discourages the producers from dealing directly with hotels, this antiquated, unsustainable process threatens the entire Cuban tourism industry.
It seems the Cuban government’s response is to build even more hotels on the notion that tourists will come whether those hotels are thriving or dying. As the Spanish saying says: “ Sin prisa pero sin pausa — without haste but without pause”. In this Cuban context – Those Cuban hotels will continuously be built slowly but surely whether the tourists like what is being offered them, or not! That is the Cuban government’s irrational response.