Woman says Abuja hotel cancels her reservation because she is married to Italian

A Nigerian woman’s four-night hotel reservation was cancelled by an Abuja hotel due to “global threat corona virus”.

Nigeria recorded its first case of coronavirus on Thursday after an Italian, who worked with a Lafarge Africa vendor, tested positive to the virus in Lagos.

Mitchelle Iannone said the Italian testing positive to the virus was the reason her reservation was cancelled by Casalinda Hotel and Gallery Resort.

The reservation was done by her husband Fabio through Bookings.com and a total of $308.33 was paid. A confirmation email was sent to Mitchelle on February 26 acknowledging the receipt of the payment and the duration of the reservation.

Mitchelle and Fabio are moving to Italy and had already disposed of their personal effects in their house in Nigeria. Hence, the need for the reservation until her fight out of Nigeria on Wednesday night.

Although her reservation was to start on March 1, Mitchelle said she called the hotel to tell them she would come in on Saturday and would pay cash for the extra one night.

That was when she was told the reservation her husband made in her name had been cancelled. Her husband has already left for Italy from Angola.

“I told the manager that I have not been outside Nigeria in the last six months when we travelled to Angola,” Mitchelle said. “I even told him that I can bring my passport for him to see.”

“The discrimination was painful, especially that I’m a Nigerian and we made that reservation over a week ago.”

Her explanation that she had packed out of her house and had five boxes containing her personal effects proved worthless. She had to return to her empty house until Sunday when she can get another hotel.

Despite the hotel claims that it cancelled Mitchelle Iannone’s reservation because of coronavirus, an official of the hotel was willing to take a reservation when The Guardian reporter called on Saturday night.

Another official told our correspondent that the decision to cancel such a reservation can only be made by the director of the hotel since reservation had been paid for