RIYADH, 8 July — In a move to provide emergency health services to ailing guests staying in starred and smaller hotels of the Kingdom, the Ministry of Commerce has directed all hotels to make necessary medical care available.

The ministry has imposed tighter restrictions by making this service mandatory and by asking hotels to provide contract copies of the agreements signed by them with private hospitals or clinics for this purpose.

This follows an intimation given by the Commerce Ministry earlier to the hotels to make arrangements for emergency treatment, a move which is annoying smaller hotels as they fear incurring extra expenses for hiring a doctor or for contracting a private clinic.

The move also follows an official communication from the Ministry of Health to the Commerce Ministry to provide emergency medicare to the employees and also to the hotel guests, many of whom might be businessmen or tourists.

Some smaller hotels said here yesterday that the ministry’s measures will add to the soaring cost of operation in Saudi Arabia, where rates of smaller or starred hotels are lower than their counterparts in other Gulf states.

The Kingdom, which has 50 percent of all hotel rooms in the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), has 7,068 hotels including some major tourism facilities.

The total hotel rooms in the Kingdom exceed 41,000 compared to the GCC’s 82,000. According to the ministry’s directive, “the law for providing mandatory health services will be applicable to only those residential hotels, which have more than 50 rooms to accommodate guests”.

The move will ensure immediate treatment to guests who complain about serious health problems during their stay.

The service, however, will be more referral in nature and the patients will be shifted to hospitals or clinics for further treatment.

Asked to comment on the new directive and about arrangements made by the local Sheraton Hotel, Majed Barri, director of sales, said that his hotel has already employed a full-time doctor to carry out initial investigations of ailing guests and employees before referring them to local hospitals or clinics.

“In fact, this arrangement has been in place for several years”, said Barri, whose employees also have insurance coverage. On the other hand, Khadar Al-Gharni, deputy general manager of the local Marriot Hotel, said that starred hotels will face no problems because of the directive of the ministry.

Almost all five star hotels or for that matter other starred hotels of the Kingdom, he said, have their own doctors and a nurse to look after their guests. Al-Gharni said that Marriot, for example, has had a full-time doctor and a nurse to attend to emergency cases.

The local InterCon Hotel, according to Chris Moloney, regional vice president of Six Continents Hotels Co. which operates some 21 InterCon Hotels in different cities of Saudi Arabia; is already having adequate arrangements for providing urgent health services to its associates and guests.

But, the problem lies with smaller hotels, whose occupancy level has gone down especially after Sept. 11, said some sources in the hotel industry. of the fact that smaller hotels also offer discounts on their rates to individuals besides corporate houses, whereas five-star hotels only offer corporate discounts, he said.

It was not immediately clear whether this directive will apply to the Kingdom’s large furnished apartments.