Axel Inaugurates First LGBTQ+ Hotel in Havana

The chain will open its hotel in the Telegraph building founded in 1860. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Madrid, 1 March 2022 — Axel Hotels is opening its first LGBTQ+ hotel in Cuba this Tuesday, the Telégrafo Axel Hotel La Habana, as confirmed by the company. Its inauguration was initially scheduled for the end of 2020, but the pandemic has been delaying the operation.

In mid-2021, the possibility of opening the establishment was mentioned again, but the most serious wave of covid-19 arrived at that time to complicate things until now.

The Telégrafo Axel Hotel La Habana has 63 rooms and, as of today, its doors are already open to anyone who wants to stay or visit it. The establishment is located next to Cuba’s National Capitol, the National Museum of Fine Arts and the Museum of the Revolution.

In addition, it has a restaurant and a lounge bar, both with a broad gastronomic concept with different options, along with a rooftop deck with a pool and a menu of snacks and drinks. It also has a wellness area with different fitness activities and saunas.

The founder of Axel Hotels, Juan P. Juliá, has affirmed that this new hotel represents a great advance within the city, as it is the first gay hotel in Havana, although it is not the pioneer on the island.

In 2019, Cuba opened its first LGBTI-friendly hotel, specially designed to meet the leisure expectations of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex people, in Cayo Guillermo. In this tourist area of ​​sun and beaches is the Hotel Gran Muthu Rainbow Cayo Guillermo, a category 5 also belonging to the Cuban company Gaviota, operated by the chain of Asian capital MGM Muthu Hotels.

Juliá foresees that Cuba will continue to be one of the tourist destinations par excellence during this recovery, which means “a great moment for the opening.”

Her opinion coincides with one of the forecasts included in the accounts of Meliá Hotels International, presented this Monday in Spain, in which a significant growth in activity in Cuba is managed compared to the first quarter of 2021.

The Majorcan hotel company closed 2021 with losses of 192.9 million euros, after a reduction of 67.6% compared to 2020, due to restrictions on mobility derived from a pandemic that is beginning to give signs of letting the tourism sector, one of the most affected, breathe.

Its CEO, Gabriel Escarrer Jaume, pointed out that the results show “a clear trend towards the recovery of the sector,” with a very significant increase in the company’s income “quarter over quarter” despite the impact of the omicron variant in December and first days of 2022.

In 2021, the operating income and capital gains of what is considered Spain’s largest hotel company grew by 70.8% compared to 2020, standing at 902.4 million euros compared to 528.4 the previous year, while operating expenses decreased by 13.6%, to the sum of 771.6 million compared to 2020.

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