Hotel
owners in Bosnia, who for religious reasons do not serve alcoholic beverages (i.e.
halal hotels) require from relevant ministries to make amendments to
regulations to ensure that their hotels can be properly categorized with four
or five stars.
The
ability to obtain such a high category is prevented by the fact that in their hotels
under the applicable international rules they do not have in their catering
offer a sufficient number of quality wines and other alcoholic beverages, which
are required so that a hotel can be given four or five stars. A newspaper
issued by the Islamic Community in BiH paid special attention to categorization
of hotels in their latest issue, pointing out that hotels with halal
certificates are in a subordinate position.
When
it comes to ranking hotels by the relevant government ministries in BiH Nermin
Hadžić, PR for the Certification Agency from Tuzla emphasizes that criteria which
they have defined understands that a hotel, which is rated a certain number of
stars, must have many kinds of wine and the like.
"This
discriminates against hotels which want to offer their services to halal
tourists because, for example, a hotel can be rated from four to seven stars by
Halal Crescent Rating but not be rated more stars from the ministry because it
does not serve alcohol. But we hope that in the next period there will be an
initiative to change the criteria for rating hotels by the relevant government
departments so that hotels wishing to offer their services to halal tourists
would not be in a subordinate position," said Hadžić.
According
to the halal-certficate, which will obviously come to life in BiH, there are
four categories of hotels which have strictly defined ways of serving food,
beverages, accommodation conditions, space to conduct religious services,
recreation and leisure activities. Preparation and serving food and drinks can
be adjusted so that all food and beverages are halal, that a part of the offer
has halal menus or that this type of food is prepared on request. A special
segment is the preparation of food at specific times.
As
far as adjustments in the rooms are concerned it is recommended that there are
no pictures with images of living beings, that there is no alcohol in the
mini-bar and that the cable television does not have "adult
channels". The rooms must provide for performing prayers, performing ablutions,
information about prayer times, maintenance of personal hygiene and there must
be a prayer mat for religious ceremonies.
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