A luxury hotel, offering breathtaking views of Caracas and the Caribbean coast, will be accepting only payments in Petro, Venezuela’s national cryptocurrency. According to President Maduro, the renovated Humboldt hotel is going to be the first seven-star property in his crisis-stricken Bolivarian Republic.
Also read: Venezuela’s President Launches Crypto Funded Youth Bank, Encourages Mining Farms
Luxury Priced in Petro
The 19-story tower, built in the Avila mountain at 2,140 meters above sea level, offers a 360 view stretching to the horizon. Glass and aluminum cover the facade of the hotel which has 70 luxurious rooms and suits. Social areas, conference rooms, an indoor pool, and a cable car are available to guests who pay in Petro.
The hotel, which was built in 1956 on the initiative of the Venezuelan dictator Marcos Jiménez, was meant to be a part of the tourist and recreational complex connecting Caracas with its coastal area. At the time, Humboldt met the highest world standards in the hospitality industry. It had several first class restaurants, a disco with rotating dance floor, and even an ice rink. The hotel was closed, however, after Jiménez’s resignation in 1958 as a “symbol of the dictatorship”. In 1991 it opened doors thanks to an Italian investor, but in 2007 Hugo Chávez’s government nationalized it and closed it again.
All services and extras at Humboldt will be priced exclusively in the state-issued cryptocurrency. According to the local newspaper Universal, visitors will be able to buy Petro from an exchange bureau in the hotel, renovated and operated by Marriott.
Crypto Exchange Points across Venezuela
“We are giving national tourism an architectural jewel,” Maduro said during the opening ceremony on Friday, which was broadcasted by VTV. The Venezuelan president also announced that soon a number of crypto exchange points will be opened across the country. He was reluctant to reveal too many details but noted that the project will be implemented in partnership between the Ministry of Tourism and large Venezuelan companies.
Some have questioned the promised seven-star rating of the renovated Humboldt hotel. While no universal international standard has been adopted yet, the five-star system is widely used around the world, with variations in the criteria for each level. Most luxury hotels are usually advertised as five-star venues. There are a few, though, that have claimed a higher rating. A notable mention in that respect is the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai offering a butler for every room and the world’s highest staff-to-suite ratio of 8 to 1. The property is the first to be widely referred to as a seven-star hotel.
Have you paid for hotel accommodation in cryptocurrency? Let us know in the comments section below.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Twitter (Nicolás Maduro).
Bitcoin News is growing fast. To reach our global audience, send us a news tip or submit a press release. Let’s work together to help inform the citizens of Earth (and beyond) about this new, important and amazing information network that is Bitcoin.
The post Sole Seven-Star Hotel in Venezuela to Accept Only Petro appeared first on Bitcoin News.
Source: Bitcoin.com