Bottling up the hotel's responsibility

Dubai may have a reputation for being a 'party city', but hoteliers need to be careful of the consequences of this image.

Like many other parts of the Middle East, alcohol is available only in licensed premises in Dubai — typically restaurants or nightclubs located on hotel property and associated with international brands.

This has created a bottleneck situation on which hotels have been only too glad to capitalise.

By virtue of a monopoly effect hotels have been able to exact a premium on prices for alcoholic drinks.

And faced with limited choice for ‘wet’ venues, expatriates regularly pack to capacity those venues with special deals such as “all you can drink” promotions.

However the lucrative opportunities these circumstances have created are yet to be met with the appropriate level of responsibility by several outlets across the region.

In the United Kingdom and Australia, staff at licensed premises are required to undergo training in Responsible Serving of Alcohol, which in essence advises how to serve alcoholic beverages in a manner that prevents customers drinking to the point where they may harm themselves or others through their actions.



However the application of this serving culture is not widespread in the Middle East.

Far too often I have witnessed bar and waiting staff serve patrons more beverages when they clearly have had far too much to drink. There are a variety of reasons for this. In some cases, the slim-build bar staff are simply intimidated by the physical presence of the customers. In others, it appears to be ignorance — if staff can’t be trusted to prepare the drinks themselves, what hope do they have of controlling its flow and distribution? In other cases again there seems to be a cultural acceptance that the purpose of functions is essentially to get patrons as drunk as physically possible.

But while these venues provide cocoons where alcohol consumption is both allowed and endorsed, as soon as customers leave the venue they re-enter a world where consumption is tightly regulated and drunken behaviour is not tolerated.

While no-one can condone the behaviour of people arrested in the Middle East for drinking-related offences — and ultimately adult customers must take responsibility for their own actions — it is time to recognise that many hotel establishments should take a more proactive stance towards the safety and well-being of their guests. Hotels in the region must start to realise that sometimes the best service they can offer their customers is to refuse further service.

Chris Jackson is the editor of Hotelier Middle East.