Abu Dhabi’s restaurants and hotels serve millions of meals each year, making them one of the emirate’s most consequential points of contact for public health. That operational reality is now the explicit target of a formal collaboration between the Department of Culture and Tourism (DCT Abu Dhabi) and Healthy Living, an agreement designed to embed healthier food options directly into the tourism and hospitality infrastructure.
The partnership works through sector-wide interventions rather than voluntary guidance. DCT Abu Dhabi and Healthy Living will develop binding policies, engage hotels, restaurants and tourism operators directly, and deploy research-based approaches to test and scale effective changes. Industry awareness campaigns will encourage broader participation and innovation across the sector.
Two specific policies already underpin this work, implemented in close coordination with the Abu Dhabi Public Health Centre (ADPHC). The first mandates that all hotel restaurants and food and beverage outlets holding a DCT Abu Dhabi tourism licence must offer at least one healthy option within each adult menu category, covering appetizers, main courses, side dishes and desserts. Children’s menus face a stricter requirement: at least 50 percent of all items must meet approved healthy nutritional standards. Compliant dishes can be identified through SEHHI, Abu Dhabi’s nutritional classification system developed by ADPHC.
The second initiative targets cardiovascular health by establishing low-sodium salt as the default table option in place of standard salt. The change draws on evidence from a study of nearly 21,000 people, which found that switching to low-sodium salt was associated with 14 percent fewer strokes, 13 percent fewer major cardiovascular events, and 12 percent fewer premature deaths.
Both policies took effect on 1 July 2026. A three-month implementation window gave establishments time to adjust menus, sourcing practices and table service protocols before full compliance and enforcement commenced on 1 October 2026. That phased timeline reflects the practical demands of running a hospitality operation at scale.
His Excellency Saleh Mohamed Al Geziry, Director General for Tourism at DCT Abu Dhabi, framed the collaboration as integral to the emirate’s positioning. “These new policies reflect Abu Dhabi’s commitment to making health and wellbeing an integral part of the hospitality experience,” he said. “By making healthier choices part of everyday dining, we are creating a more positive experience for residents and visitors while strengthening Abu Dhabi’s position as a destination for wellbeing.”
His Excellency Dr Ahmed Alkhazraji, Executive Director of Healthy Living, kept the focus on execution. “For us, it’s simple: we want the healthy choice to be the easy choice,” he said. “Our collaboration with DCT Abu Dhabi allows us to make practical, system-level changes across a sector that reach millions of residents and visitors each year. We are already seeing what that can mean in practice, from changing what’s on the menu to what’s on the table.”
Meanwhile, the agreement extends well beyond these two implemented policies. DCT Abu Dhabi and Healthy Living will continue working with hospitality partners to identify additional opportunities, test emerging approaches and expand initiatives that can improve health outcomes across the emirate. The framing is deliberately iterative: evidence-driven development rather than a fixed checklist of requirements.
The practical question going forward is how quickly the sector absorbs the October compliance baseline and whether the pipeline of further initiatives, still being developed, can match the pace of a hospitality industry that is itself growing.