This probably also applies to the issues about food/meals being available at the specific times mandated by Ramadan restrictions (last thing before sunrise, and straight after sunset). From the various comments it is fairly clear that in high Summer these wouldn't be the times a hotel normally serves meals - breakfast at 5.30 am ..??!.Roger de Coverly wrote:Whilst I suspect you are right, there's a chain as to whose problem it is....Gareth Harley-Yeo wrote: The halal food issue I can understand - if the ECF failed to meet their obligations of provision for any special dietary requirements then this needs to be looked at for future events.
Note also that in this particular case we are likely talking about a small hotel in a smallish town in Styria, which is not the most cosmopolitan part of Austria (apart possibly from its biggest city Graz). I wonder what a hotel in a place like that would say if you asked for vegetarian meals, for instance. My acquaintance with rural S Germany suggests you might get a shrug and a comment like "Well you can eat the salad things and maybe an omelette if it's on the menu".
Anyway, I'd think it highly likely small hotels in such locations have no experience of, and do not expect to have to deal with, clients with non-standard dietary and mealtime requirements. Which presents a problem, obviously, for teams with people who do have such requirements... and brings us back to the issue of whose job it is to tell hotels such things in advance, and whether it is anyone's formal responsibility to intervene if the 'modifications' don't happen or are deemed insufficient. And then add possibly language and cultural 'barriers' too. But in the setting of this particular case it all tends to provide plausible explanations for 'cock-up rather than conspiracy', if I can put it that way.