{"id":11571,"date":"2017-05-09T13:09:00","date_gmt":"2017-05-09T21:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/havana-now-has-a-luxury-mall-but-who-can-afford-to-shop-there\/"},"modified":"2017-05-09T13:09:00","modified_gmt":"2017-05-09T21:09:00","slug":"havana-now-has-a-luxury-mall-but-who-can-afford-to-shop-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/havana-now-has-a-luxury-mall-but-who-can-afford-to-shop-there\/","title":{"rendered":"Havana Now Has A Luxury Mall. But Who Can Afford To Shop There?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Laurel Wamsley<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

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\n A Cuban girl takes a selfie in front of a window of a luxury store at the Manzana de Gomez Kempinski five-star hotel in Havana on Monday. The Manzana de Gomez Kempinski bills itself as Cuba’s first real five-star hotel, and the brand-name shops around it appear designed to reinforce that.<\/p>\n

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Ramon Espinosa\/AP<\/p>\n

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Ramon Espinosa\/AP<\/p>\n

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Cuba is not an easy place to buy things. Food is rationed<\/a>, wages are low<\/a>, and the black market is a way of life<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But now, Cubans can buy shirts with those little alligators on them at Lacoste. Or at L’Occitane en Provence, face cream for $162.40 an ounce. Or watches in the $10,000s.<\/p>\n

Cuba’s first luxury mall, Manzana de Gomez, opened up a few weeks ago. And while those items are for sale, the prices are in a different sphere from what most Cubans can afford.<\/p>\n

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Indeed, the stores’ envisioned clientele seems to be tourists from abroad, rather than locals, and the new mall puts their differing means in high relief.<\/p>\n

“A few blocks away, working-class Cubans live in decaying apartments on streets clogged by uncollected trash,” reports<\/a> the AP:<\/p>\n

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“This hurts because I can’t buy anything,” said Rodolfo Hernandez Torres, a 71-year-old retired electrical mechanic who lives on a salary of $12.50 a month. “There are people who can come here to buy things but it’s maybe one in 10. Most of the country doesn’t have the money.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Gaviota, the Cuban military’s tourism company, is the dealmaker behind the mall \u2014 and above it, the country’s first five-star hotel<\/a>, opening in June. European luxury hotel brand Kempinski will operate the hotel, in a management deal with Gaviota<\/a>. (American companies aren’t allowed<\/a> to build in Cuba.)<\/p>\n