A very holy month

As the World Cup’s 2014 ‘Round of 16’ drew to a close last week, Executive once again sat down with a few hospitality venue owners to see whether the recent suicide bombings and the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan had affected them. Some restaurants airing the games had indeed noticed lesser volume of people since the start Ramadan, compared to the first week of the game, as people tend to eat more at home during the first week of the month. While admitting that their venues in Verdun and Hamra were less busy than the first week of the games, Rita Saati, marketing officer at Roadster Group, says their other locations compensated for this and they didn’t have a major cumulative decrease in sales or volume, making them satisfied with their venues’ performance during the World Cup thus far. Most bars and clubs in Beirut are experiencing the annual