Havana’s new LTI Panorama Hotel will open in December
The spanking-new LTI Panorama Hotel –whose futurist architecture juts out in the tourist expansion area of Miramar, a gardened neighborhood in western Havana- will start welcoming its very first guests in the first half of December, general manager Marcos Cardillos announced. The resort’s grand opening will happen in the early days of the island nation’s high-peak tourist season, a time of the year tourism authorities on the island have their hopes pinned on.
“We know this is going to be a tough challenge. However, we count on a young but highly talented and experienced staff. We know the Cuban market pretty well due to the years we’ve been working in it, and this gives us an edge to quicken our management,” the exec commented as he downplayed the fact that the new lodging facility does not appear in many wintertime brochures.
“We cannot forget that right now –given the current situation we’re all aware of- last-minute sales make a difference, and our partners in Italy and France are just waiting for the (new hotel) opening to commence a marketing effort. We’ll take advantage of other resorts run by LTI in Varadero and Holguin to sell combined packages. We’re also planning to launch a strong onslaught into the incentive and business market,” Mr. Rodriguez added.
The new four-star hotel features 317 interactive rooms –many of them are suites- equipped with Internet-ready hookup and a good array of services, many of them with around-the-clock availability. The resort has a couple of a-la-carte restaurants catering German and Italian food, a smorgasbord mess hall, a poolside restaurant, a piano bar, gym, sauna, several meeting rooms and a business center. It equally provides a bus service shuttling guests twice a day and absolutely free of charge to Havana’s historic core, biweekly magazine Destinos reports.
Mr. Cardillos referred to the Panorama Hotel’s strategic proximity to both Havana’s Tropicana Cabaret and International Conference Center, let alone its location close to the Miramar Trade Center –currently under expansion- that cloisters a major corporate community in the heart of the diplomatic borough.
“Our marketing strategy is focused on all those countries that send tourist to Cuba, nations in Europe and South America, plus Canada. We hope Germany could definitely step into the limelight,” LTI Panorama marketing manageress Susanne Roth says. “That’s the reason behind the idea of a German-food restaurant –the only one of its kind on the island nation- to meet the interests of that market and of the many German companies stationed here. Besides, that Germanic presence could increase dramatically because ties and bonds remain on the rise,” she said.
“We’re on the Internet through the Supra National reserve system –the world’s fourth largest provider- and we’ll hit the sales network through Rewe Trading Group. LTI is a participating member of this group that will embrace more than 2,000 travel agencies by the end of the year,” Mrs. Roth concluded.
