Trends in food safety: implications for European hotels

The central message coming out of this paper is that the realisation of food safety legislation within the context of the European internal market, whilst laudable, has encountered, and will continue to meet with difficulties in its effective implementation. In considering specifically food safety within the European hotel industry, there has been a move away from prescription to generalised principles contained within the relevant legislation. Yet, with such flexibility, differences have emerged in interpretation, all at the expense of the single market, free of trade barriers. The size of the EU inevitably means that more emphasis regarding food safety procedures will be placed on shifting responsibility to hotel proprietors and also on appropriate monitoring by authorities. However, because of the nature and structure of the European hotel industry, in terms of chain and independent hotels, and its transient workforce, the evidence suggests that a substantial minority are still not ready to assume those responsibilities.