By the Cuba Journal staff
Built in the 1950s, Varadero’s Hotel Internacional has long stood as one of Cuba’s landmark hotel properties.
But now the Internacional is getting new life and a new shape.
The government said this week that work had begun to prepare the property for demolition in favor of a new, 924-room hotel.
The new iteration of the International will likely open beyond 2018 as a five-star, all-inclusive property, the government said.
According to Bladimir Ayra, director of the Bouygues Batiment Intetrnational, the old structure was “insufficient to satisfy foreign tourism.”
The new design won’t ignore the Internacional heritage, though: the new property will be inspired by conceptual ideas expressed in the original, with some elements typical of Cuban architecture in the 1950s, according to Roberto Rovira, director of the Business Group of Construction.
Varadero is the country’s major tourism hub, located about 120 kilometres east of Havana.