Venezuelan Hotels Are Asking Guests To Bring Their Toilet Paper And Soap

Shortages in Venezuela have hit an all-time high, bringing hotel owners to ask tourists to provide their own supplies in order to have a comfortable stay as reported by Fusion. Hotels in Mérida, a state in the western part of the country, have been struggling to stock up on the most basic items such as toilet paper and soap; “It’s an extreme situation,” says Xinia Camacho, owner of a 20-room boutique hotel in Sierra Nevada national park. “For over a year we haven’t had toilet paper, soap, any kind of milk, coffee or sugar. So we have to tell our guests to come prepared.”

The president of Merida’s tourism chamber, Gerardo Montilla, told Fusion that product shortages are hitting smaller hotels the most, particularly during vacation seasons. “Five hotels have told me they are going through this situation, where they have to ask guests to bring their own toilet paper,” said Montilla. However, the bigger hotels are able to afford the black market prices, where regular products can cost up to six times the regular price.

Camacho also explained that, on top of not being able to afford it, she refuses to participate in the corruption of the black market, plus, to top things off, she doesn’t have four hours a day “to line up for toilet paper at a supermarket.” Despite working in the tourism industry and loving her country, Camacho doesn’t want to be irresponsible telling people visit her country, “I can’t tell a foreign tourist to come to Venezuela. As soon as they get off the plane they will encounter risks,” she says.