Board and meal terms in Turkish hotel contracts: full board, half board and the meal that starts the arrangement

Full board is a special tariff covering the room, breakfast and two meals; half board covers the room, breakfast and one meal. Under the tourism regulation in Türkiye, the first meal a guest takes after arrival starts the board arrangement, and a hotel may decline to discount meals that are not eaten.

It is 21:40, dinner service closed at 21:00, and a guest at the desk with a half board voucher asks whether dinner is still owed to them. The desk, the restaurant and the reservation record often give three different answers to that one question. This article gives each meal-related term a plain meaning the whole team can share, so both teams answer the same way, in the same words, at any hour. The definitions below follow standard practice in Türkiye's tourism regulations; they are a working summary, not legal advice. Confirm your own facility's position, and the exact text that applies to it, with a legal adviser.

What do full board and half board mean in the regulation?#

Article 56 of the Regulation on the Relations of Tourism Establishments with the Ministry, with Each Other and with Their Customers defines both as special tariffs: full board is the room, breakfast and two meals; half board is the room, breakfast and one meal. The definition is a price bundle, not a menu promise. The regulation fixes what the tariff covers, not which dishes, which restaurant or which service style.

Breakfast is named separately and counted on its own, so full board is breakfast plus two further meals, and half board is breakfast plus one further meal. The text does not name lunch or dinner, so the hotel's own written plan decides which two meals full board includes. That plan should be short enough for a desk clerk to repeat from memory.

Article 56 defines only full board and half board. All-inclusive, ultra all-inclusive and similar labels are contract wording between the hotel and the guest or the agency, not terms the text sets. Whatever the reservation voucher calls the tariff, the desk and the restaurant must be able to point to the same wording, because that wording is what the guest will quote back. The regulation applies to the tourism establishments it covers; confirm with your legal adviser how it reaches your own facility type and contract. For a wider view of the labels, see hotel board types explained, from room only to ultra all-inclusive.

Which meal starts the board arrangement?#

The first meal the guest takes after arrival starts the board arrangement, according to Article 56. The clock does not start at check-in, at the published arrival time or at midnight. A guest who arrives after dinner service and eats nothing that evening has not started the board; the first meal they actually take, usually breakfast the next morning, is the starting point.

This protects both sides. The guest receives the meals they paid for, and the hotel is not treated as owing a service that had already closed when the guest arrived. The regulation says which meal starts the arrangement but does not spell out how the count runs afterwards, so the hotel's stated meal plan fills that gap and should say so in writing.

Record the expected first meal on the reservation at booking time, so the desk is not deciding it at 21:40 with a queue behind the guest. Group and agency contracts often carry their own meal wording; read the agency's clause before the guest's voucher reaches the desk.

What does a meal mean when the contract does not say?#

The regulation names breakfast and counts meals, but it does not name lunch or dinner, fix a menu or set service hours. What fills that gap is the hotel's own written plan, published in the same words everywhere the guest can see it. A meal is a service occasion at a stated time and place, not a credit the guest can spend elsewhere or convert into cash.

Three documents must say the same thing: the sales description the guest booked from, the reservation voucher, and the welcome information in the room. Watch the gap between the website's promise and the restaurant's actual service: the regulation does not settle it, so the hotel's own wording must. Say whether the meal is buffet or set menu, which outlet serves it, and what happens on the day an outlet is closed. If your hotel sells board packages as a commercial choice, see choosing the board basis a hotel sells, all-inclusive or half board.

Can a hotel refuse to discount meals a guest did not eat?#

Yes. Article 56 says that where full or half board rates apply, the hotel may decline to discount meals that were not eaten at the hotel. It is a permission, not an obligation, so the hotel chooses and should choose once. A hotel may also grant a reduction; what it should not do is let each shift decide differently.

The article addresses meals the guest did not eat. A meal the hotel did not serve is a different situation, handled under the hotel's own service policy and, where needed, legal advice. Write the policy into the reservation terms and repeat it in one sentence at the desk, so the answer is the same on a Tuesday morning and a Saturday night.

Note the guest's notification in the reservation record: a documented "declined dinner, out with family" is worth more than a memory at checkout. Do not let the desk improvise a cash equivalent; an uneaten meal is not a refundable line item unless your own terms say it is. Revenue and reservations teams should agree the wording together, because the guest hears it first from sales and last from the cashier.

What happens with meals outside the stated times and places?#

Article 57 says meals are taken at the stated times and places, and that a request for a meal outside the stated place and time may be charged extra. Two conditions, not one: the rule covers a change of time and a change of place, so a tray sent to the room is as much a request outside the arrangement as a 23:00 dinner.

The hotel must state the times and places, which means publishing them in the welcome information and the room card, not only on a noticeboard by the kitchen door. "May be charged extra" is again a permission: set the charge, publish it, and apply it before the food is served rather than at checkout.

The late arrival at the centre of this article sits at the crossing of two articles. Article 56 decides whether the board has started; Article 57 decides whether a meal served outside service hours carries a charge. Post the extra as its own line on the guest bill, described as a service outside stated hours, so it never looks like a board item the guest already paid for. Say the charge out loud before serving; a guest who agrees at 21:40 rarely disputes it at checkout.

Can guests bring food in or cook in their rooms?#

Article 50 says customers may not cook in their rooms, and that the hotelier may charge an extra fee where food and drink that the hotel itself supplies is brought in and consumed by the customer. These are two separate rules in one article: a plain ban on cooking in rooms, and a permission to charge in a narrower case.

Read the second rule closely. The fee attaches to food and drink that the hotel itself supplies being brought in and consumed, which is narrower than a general ban on all outside food. A blanket "no outside food or drink" house rule rests on something other than this article, and should be written and tested as a house rule; see whether a hotel can ban outside food and alcohol, and what a house rule rests on. Publish whatever rule you adopt where the guest sees it before booking, not only on a card inside the room.

If you charge, state the amount; a fee discovered at checkout is the version guests dispute. Confirm your own case with a legal adviser before changing house rules, because the wording of Article 50 does not answer every situation a desk meets.

One-page phrasing sheet for the desk and the dining room#

The desk and the restaurant should give the same answer to the same question, so write the answers once, keep them to one page, and train both teams from that page. One line per question, in the guest's words, with the supporting article noted in the margin for staff reference. Keep the sheet next to the reservation screen and in the restaurant's briefing folder, so it is read at shift handover rather than found after a complaint. Review it after every dispute: a question that produced two answers means the sheet is missing a line. Give reservations the same sheet, because the first version of the answer is usually given on the phone weeks earlier.

What to do next#

Write the one-page phrasing sheet, then check that the sales description, the reservation voucher and the welcome information all say the same thing about the board basis, the first meal and the charge for service outside stated hours. The regulation gives you the frame, three articles deep, in the TÜRSAB copy of the regulation text (opens in a new tab) (November 2026). The words your guest actually reads are yours to choose, so choose them once and confirm your own case with a legal adviser.