Cairo's luxury Grand Hyatt hotel might be stripped of its five-star status after the owner stopped serving alcohol in the name of Islam. Egyptian authorities took this stance when last month, Abdel Aziz Ibrahim, a member of the Saudi royal family and owner of the coveted luxury property that sits on a tongue of land at the edge of the Nile, decided to get rid of all the alcohol in stock.

Without providing any notice to the American hotel chain managing the property, Hyatt International, the sheikh ordered the 2,500 bottles of alcoholic beverages at the hotel to be flushed down the toilets.

The decision to ban alcohol at such a popular destination has rocked Egypt's tourism industry, which handled 11.1 million tourists last year, employs 12 percent of the active population and accounts for 11.6 percent of the country's Gross National Product.

For the Egyptian authorities, eager to protect its booming tourist industry, there can be only one solution, either the hotel begins to sell alcohol again or it loses its status as one of Cairo’s elite hotels.

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