Cali’s love motels help host UN summit delegates

DIVERSITY, INDEED With traditional hotels bursting at the seams, a room like this at Motel Deseos (Desires) has become an option for foreigners attending an international biodiversity conference in Cali, Colombia. —Agence France-Presse

CALI, Colombia — Aggrey Rwetsiba, a Ugandan delegate to the United Nations’ biodiversity summit in Colombia, finds himself in unusual accommodations: a motel normally destined for trysts, with rooms featuring sex swings and stripper poles.

Like other visitors to the Colombian city, his hotel booking fell through, and Rwetsiba had to make last-minute arrangements.

With traditional hotels bursting at the seams, hourly rate motels came to the rescue of stranded delegates like himself.

Showing Agence France-Presse (AFP) around his room in the Motel Deseos (Desires), the delegate points to the big double bed, walk-in shower and an unusual feature: a ceiling mirror.

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Some of his clothes are draped on hangers from the shower screen, others are folded up in a small cubicle with one door inside the room and another that opens on the hallway.

Usually rented out for a few hours at a time, there are no wardrobes in the rooms. And the double-doored cubicle is for staff to pass drinks to guests seeking seclusion.

Bursting at the seams

“I’m not sure whether I’ve got the full understanding of what a motel should be, but I have seen some unique features… Like the mirror on the ceiling. I have never seen [that] in a hotel,” Rwetsiba told AFP.

Motel Deseos manager Diana Echeverry proudly showed AFP around the facility, with 40 rooms spread over two floors, and one wing set aside for a dozen COP16 delegates.

In the rest of the building, rooms feature such amenities as Jacuzzis, “kama sutra” loungers and dance poles.

“We have adapted our establishment a little in order to be able to host the guests of COP16 and foreigners,” Echeverry told AFP.

Contacted at short notice by local authorities, she said, the motel quickly worked out a daily rate—150,000 Colombian pesos (about $35) per night—and introduced a breakfast service.

Room prices usually range from 65,000 to 100,000 pesos (P877-P1,350) for three hours.

Good for business

Staff also “took out the love swings, ‘love machines,’ Kama Sutra chairs and left the rooms without those kinds of items,” said Echeverry.

The biodiversity summit has been good for business, she added.

“It has ensured that the [delegates’] rooms are occupied during those days and … the remaining rooms now rotate much more to meet the demands of our usual guests.”

Cali Mayor Alejandro Eder told reporters this week the city’s hotels were “100 percent” full, with Airbnbs, houses and apartments also rented out.

Initial expectations had been for between 12,000 and 15,000 people to attend the COP16, but in the end, there were closer to 23,000 registered delegates, said Eder. —Agence France-Presse