Packaged Vacations: Tourism Development in the Spanish Caribbean

3. Cathedrals of Chaos

3 Cathedrals of Chaos Hilton International’s early history in Latin America was marked by numerous challenges, including adverse tropical weather, earthquakes, contract disputes, and the Cuban Revolution. Adverse weather, particularly during the hurricane season, negatively affected occupation rates at Hilton’s seaside resorts. In September 1960, for example, Hurricane Donna kept occupancy rates low at the Caribé Hilton. The worst, however, happened elsewhere on the island, as floods and heavy rains claimed hundreds of lives in the region . Weather also impacted publicity for the tourist industry in the United States. At the Virgin Islands Hilton on Saint Thomas, Hurricane Donna did not inflict any damage on the property, but did affect occupancy rates for at least one weekend in September.1 Two months later, bad weather, coupled with an airline disaster in the New York City area, drove the number of noshows at the hotel as high as 65 percent.2 A heavy cloudburst at the seaside Las Brisas Hilton on November 12, 1961, inflicted minimal damage on the hotel, but the hotel staff spent the day keeping guests calm, many of whom “contributed to relief funds for homeless and hungry people in Acapulco and the countryside who had suffered from the storm.”3 Inland hotels were also subject to the capricious effects of natural disaster . During July 1957, a strong earthquake rumbled through the Valley of Mexico, causing hundreds of deaths and structurally damaging many buildings , including the Continental Hilton. As one reporter who was staying at the hotel remembered, “Plaster fell, lights went out. From a few blocks away there came a tremendous roar as a five-story apartment building col- 44 The American Caribbean lapsed on itself into a heap of . . . rubble. . . . Pure, blind uncontrollable terror resulted here as it would have anywhere.” As guests made their way through the dark, the stairs and hallways filled with debris. Guests attributed the relative calm that prevailed in the hotel to the staff for their “complete, errorless, total efficiency.”4 Following the earthquake, Hilton International reinforced the hotel under the direction of earthquake specialists “to insure that this hotel would be completely structurally sound and safe under any foreseeable circumstance.”5 Unfortunately, the great Mexico City earthquake of 1985 helped seal the fate of the Continental Hilton, inflicting irreparable damage to the structure. The hotel was subsequently torn down.6 Contract disputes also plagued Hilton International’s Latin American operations . Following the sale of Hilton International to TWA in 1967, the hotel chain continued to operate several hotels in Mexico, including the Continental Hilton in Mexico City, the Guadalajara Hilton, the Acapulco Hilton, and Las Brisas Resort, also located in Acapulco. In 1982, Hilton International encountered contract disputes with the Alemán family, owners of the Continental Hilton, the Acapulco Hilton, and Las Brisas. The Mexican constitution of 1917 strictly stipulated that leases in coastal Mexico expired after a ten-year period. The Alemán family decided not to renew the lease, hoping to sell off the property instead. Former Hilton International president Curt Strand remembers that the Hilton managers were threatened with bodily harm if they did not leave the hotel premises in Acapulco. In Strand’s recollection , “One of the managers was driven to a country road and thrown out of a vehicle.” Cooler heads prevailed, and the Mexican court system settled the dispute in the Alemán family’s favor. Rodolfo Casparius, a former Hilton International executive and preeminent authority on the Mexican hotel industry in the twentieth century, remembers the event somewhat differently. According to Casparius, the Alemáns contended that the lease with Hilton generated higher revenues for the chain than for the owners and wanted the lease canceled. Casparius argues that Hilton brought suit against the former Mexican president. In Casparius’s recollection, “negotiations deteriorated and the Hilton International management team was thrown out of the property by men carrying machine guns.”7 Whatever the case, this episode was a serious setback to Hilton in Mexico, not to mention a significant failure in negotiating the political landscape of the country. The biggest challenge for Hilton International in Latin America during the 1950s was the Cuban Revolution. The Habana Hilton opened in 1958 against a backdrop of political and economic unrest. Less than a year later, on January 1, 1959, hotel employees crammed the three entrances to the hotel, fighting to keep mobs from overrunning the hotel. When the July 45...