Three Rials for a bottle of water?

I am currently working on a review of the restaurant at the chedi, but for today, I will share one major grievance with you. Bottled water.

Our recent visits the The restaurant in the Chedi Muscat, started off on the wrong foot with something as simple as water. They used to serve locally bottled Arwa or Tanuf, in big or small bottles, for a 200% mark up over the cost anywhere else. Fair enough, this is the Chedi.

Now, they sell 750 ml glass bottles of still water, imported from Scotland, for a whopping 2.8 rials, which is slightly more than Seven US dollars. It's just water. It's not particularly great water, but it's fancy, pretentious, expensive water that required many tonnes of fossil fuels to extract, bottle, and ship it here.

Additionally, they won't sell any other type of water, nothing local, nothing cheap, and our requests for a pitcher of tap water were initially refused. They have a good scheme here, knowing full well that tourists are terrified of drinking tap water, and so will pay the extortionate rates for bottled water.

The attitude from the staff was that the Chedi is too good to serve water from plastic bottles, or to offer filtered tap water. Thus, I was rather surprised to see that the complementary water inside the suite for which we had paid RO 350 per night ( 900 USD!!!) was Arwa, in plastic bottles. So it's ok to serve water in plastic bottles in a 350 rial suite, but not in the restaurant...because in the restaurant, you can charge the guests an arm and a leg for it. It's a rip off, pure and simple, not to mention an absolute waste of resources.

If the Chedi wanted to get serious about being an environmentally conscious hotel, they would serve filtered tap water, for 100bz a glass, with the money collected going to the Environmental society of Oman, or some other charity. They could offer the guests the option of buying the premium water, and quite a few would go for it, for the snob factor.

Kids, when you go to the Chedi, do me a favor and complain long and loud about the bottled water issue. Demand tap water. I think if they get enough complaints, they might be willing to change the policy when their contract expires with the Scottish company next year. Maybe.

This is also Cross Posted over at my blog, Other Oman

Oman's Arabian Oryx sanctuary becomes the first site to be removed from UNESCO's World Heritage list

Christchurch, New Zealand, 28 June - The World Heritage Committee on Thursday took the unprecedented decision of removing a site from UNESCO's World Heritage List. The Arabian Oryx Sanctuary (Oman), home to the rare antelope, today became the first site to be deleted since UNESCO's 1972 Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage entered into force.


The World Heritage Committee deleted the property because of Oman's decision to reduce the size of the protected area by 90%, in contravention of the Operational Guidelines of the Convention. This was seen by the Committee as destroying the outstanding universal value of the site which was inscribed in 1994.

In 1996, the population of the Arabian Oryx in the site, was at 450 but it has since dwindled to 65 with only about four breeding pairs making its future viability uncertain. This decline is due to poaching and habitat degradation.

After extensive consultation with the State Party, the Committee felt that the unilateral reduction in the size of the Sanctuary and plans to proceed with hydrocarbon prospection would destroy the value and integrity of the property, which is also home to other endangered species including, the Arabian Gazelle and houbara bustard.

The Committee expressed regret that the State Party failed to fulfill its obligations regarding the conservation of the Sanctuary as defined by the World Heritage Convention. from the UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE web site


Arabian oryx were hunted out in Oman, but reintroduced in 1979
1994 - official sanctuary is set up and added to UNESCO's World Heritage list Population rises to 450 in 1996, drops to 65 in 2007.

Park struck off UNESCO list after being opened to oil prospectors. from the BBC News, Fact about Oman


Oman's Arabian Oryx sanctuary becomes the first site to be removed from UNESCO's World Heritage list after the rare species dwindled and the government cut the park size by 90%. from the BBC News, Fact about Oman





Links:

BBC - FACT(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/country_profiles/2448259.stm )

NATURE - WILDFACTS(http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/wildfacts/factfiles/618.shtml)

UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE (http://whc.unesco.org/en/news/362)

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I know this news is few months old, but i only got to find out few hours ago, when i was reading through the update page of Fact about Oman on the BBC web site. The truth i was shocked when i read abou the removal of Oman site from the UNESCO list.


Because only a week ago i was talking about how conservative and sustainable Oman is towards animals and environement with my line manager and the director.

• Did any one know about this removal?


• What is the reaction of the Omani Environement Group/Organization in regards to this removal?


• Is HM happy about what happend and the decision made behind securing the oil site and excluding 90% of the Arabian Oryx Sanctuary from the orginal 100%?


• Is there any futures plans in regards bringing such treasure back to Oman?

If you have any other infromation about this, then post it in here.

I know i might sound paranoid and making a big issue about this, but the truth it is a big issue in my eye.