Information about the revision by the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism (TGA) of the tourist service protocol appeared in the Turkish press on March 10. Now hotels are being rebuilt to a new format. The most important change was the opening of the buffet in restaurants: the practice of serving dishes by the staff on duty became optional.
According to the representative of the Nirvana Hotels network Guzel Kiyak, hotel managers have a choice on which system to organize the guests’ meals. “Our restaurants continue to work in the we serve format, we consider this approach to serving more hygienic,” the hotel explained. “When the cook puts food, none of the tourists touch the food tongs with their hands, it is impossible for foreign objects to accidentally get into the food warmers.”
The Pine Beach Resort returned to the traditional buffet: they removed the glass showcases covering the buffet. Now guests can take food themselves, it is possible to cut the cake on their own and put a piece for themselves, pour coffee or tea.
On the question of which of the formats of the restaurant is more profitable from the point of view of the economy, experts express different opinions. Yana Sayafarova, Deputy Director of Marketing at Pine Beach Resort, notes that if the food is served by cooks, the staff of kitchen workers should be almost 2 times larger than the standard one. “Relatively speaking, instead of 20 people, 35 people should work in a restaurant. This figure must also be multiplied by two shifts a day. Therefore, this option of catering is more costly for the hotel.”
On the other hand, there is an opinion that the we serve format reduces the number of discarded products. “When the cook imposes, many guests no longer come up for hot dishes for the second time. When tourists do this, they sometimes take more than they can actually eat, says one of the hoteliers. “Therefore, a closed buffet allows you to better plan the volume of food purchases.
Tourists, on the other hand, prefer a free approach to buffets. “It’s convenient, you don’t have to stand in line to put in a tomato,” says travel agent Maria Sheker. – It was especially interesting when you want a specific herb, but don’t know its name. And to poke a finger into a pile of greenery – they will put the wrong one anyway. ”
Among other changes in hotels, experts call the abolition of the mask regime for tourists, there will no longer be sanitizers on the tables in restaurants, which were previously mandatory. They do not measure the temperature of guests and staff. The restrictions on the time for visiting saunas and spas, as well as the number of people in fitness centers, have been lifted. Those who become ill will be able to use their own number for isolation.