Around US$18,000 have lost hotels in Venezuela due to the more than 3,000 victims of the rains who are already one year old staying in some of the establishments in Greater Caracas, according to the newspaper El Nacional with information from the Federación Nacional de Hoteles de Venezuela (Fenahoven).
The National Government hosted a group of victims of the heavy rains of November 2010 and promised that after three months it would end the permanence of the people. However, there are currently 52 hotels in Greater Caracas that still have people on their premises, and according to Fenahoven, the establishments have not received payments.
The president of the union, José Alberto Núñez, told the local newspaper that at the beginning of 2011 there were 159 hotels affected. In total there are 858 rooms that since the previous year host people at the request of the Government, which has resulted in losses of about $ 78,000,000 bolivars (US $ 18,000).
However, the federation ensures that the hotels are profitable, since there is mostly only an average of 15 rooms occupied by the victims and the rest available, which allows the flow of customers to an important extent.
Problems such as housing construction and the assignment of some families in faraway places to their jobs have prevented people from leaving hotels, according to Núñez. But the official adds that the state of the facilities is good, thanks to the tourism portfolio established by the Government.
Occupancy in Venezuela, according to data from Fenahove, of the 600 hotels in the nation registers an average of 52%.
