Interesting that anyone in Europe could find room to consider this discrimination – let alone racist – given their behavior toward white South Africans during the apartheid era of the 70s and 80s. European governments and businesses thought nothing of not serving or allowing white South Africans in, but they would allow black South Africans to do business and enter – now that is racial discrimination. Last I heard Cuba was a nation, not a race, so they would have to claim ethnic or national discrimination if anything. Now under the EU treaty on discrimination they do forbid discrimination based on nationality – but they also have a section I’m not about to read right now that specifically differentiates between direct and indirect discrimination, and this sounds a lot like the indirect type.
Apparently the Norwegian government didn’t do a good job of understanding the implications of allowing an American firm to buy a chain of hotels in their country as they could have stopped the sale at any time – or they liked the idea of the Hilton/US money and hoped nothing like this would happen. Either way, there is plenty of blame to be laid at the feet of the Norwegian government and now they’re trying to pin it on someone else. The US government thinks nothing of denying a foreign company the right to buy a US company if they determine there will be a conflict of laws and we understand that any multinational company has to walk a fine line to be in compliance with both the laws where they are doing business and the laws where they are based or incorporated.
Another question this raises to me is why did Hilton buy out Scandic – or what was Scandic doing wrong that put them in a position to be bought out? Scandic must have been either in some financial trouble or figured they could make more money selling out than continuing to operate. Furthermore, what did Hilton Hotels discover about the Scandic brand and missed by Hilton Group that caused them to want to dump the Scandic brand in August, only 6 months after acquiring it? If Hilton hadn’t purchased Scandic would this even be an issue if Scandic had folded? Is this why the Norwegian government didn’t attempt to block the sale even if they knew there would be conflict of operating laws?
This whole thing smells like a publicity set up to me. Given the poor reporting I’ve seen so far I wonder if the Cuban representatives were actually not allowed to stay at the hotel or if they were not allowed to pay for the hotel with Cuban government money – and then kept out because they hadn’t paid up. I haven’t studied the legal changes made in 1999, but I know before then there was a big difference between being a “guest” and a “customer,” and the Cuban government knew very well how to play that game. For instance I could go to Cuba, but I couldn’t spend money on certain services there, so I would pay a Canadian firm to arrange a “host” for me in Cuba and my host would pay for all my services for me and I would spend no money in Cuba. Given that the Cuban tourism organizations are still doing that, they can’t claim ignorance of the way around the laws or the implications – and I can’t believe they didn’t know a US firm owned the hotel they were planning on staying at. The buyout happened in March, they did the same thing in Mexico last year (and got no publicity out of it), and they were reminded again before Christmas, yet the Cuban delegation shows up acting as if this is something new.
For the rest I'm polite enough to keep my personal views to myself and not try to tell my hosts how they should live their lives.
