MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina: Gay but ?hetero-friendly'

The first five-star gay hotel in Latin America will open in Buenos Aires next year, two Spanish businessmen said yesterday as they launched the project.

The five-floor hotel, which will be located in the city neighbourhood of San Telmo, is a branch of Barcelona's Hotel Axel. It will cost 3.5 million US dollars and is scheduled to open in April.

"The hotel will be gay, but it will also be hetero-friendly," said Axel Group head Nacho Rodriguez during the presentation, which included music and champagne, at the construction site at 600 Venezuela street. "We don't want it to become a gay ghetto."

The owner of the Axel Group, Juan Juliá, said that Buenos Aires had "great potential" for a luxurious gay hotel.

"This will be a cosmopolitan design hotel, which wishes to cater for a portion of the public that has for years not felt well served," said Juliá. "When you arrive in hotels as a gay couple, you sometimes get giggles and funny looks from the employees," he added.

A strong local gay community, combined with the sharp devaluation of the peso in 2002, has turned Buenos Aires into a haven for gay tourism in the last few years. Julia said that even though he had researched the market prospects for his project in Buenos Aires, he mostly followed a "gut feeling" when deciding on Argentina's capital as the location of his first gay hotel in Latin America.

Argentina's former tourism secretary, Herman Lombardi, who now owns a tourism company, will also participate in the installation of the hotel. Lombardi, who served in the ill-fated administration of president Fernando de la Rua, said the hotel would help make Buenos Aires a more tolerant place.

"(The hotel) will make Buenos Aires more plural and tolerant. And the San Telmo neighbourhood is a very friendly place for the gay community," said Lombardi. Buenos Aires Herald