Dubai: His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, issued a series of directives on Monday aimed at enhancing and streamlining hotel investment and development in Dubai.
The emirate will need to double its hotel supply to accommodate the 20 million visitors it expects by 2020, a target that is outlined in the Dubai Tourism Vision for 2020, announced last year.
Under the directives, the pre-approval process period for hotel construction will be reduced to two months, while the approval process of planning permission for all hotel establishments in the emirate will be standardised through Dubai Municipality. The municipality will manage a single streamlined system to help reduce red tape for businesses and ensure that new reduced approval timeframes are met.
Another directive is the allocation of government land for the development of three- and four-star hotels. The locations will be identified by Dubai Municipality and government-linked master developers who will work with Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing.
Meanwhile, additional incentives were introduced to help develop more three- and four-star hotels in Dubai, including no fees on changing the usage of land to hotel usage, the establishment of a committee to review re-zoning of plots and an extra year of exemption of the 10 per cent Dubai Municipality fee for three- and four-star hotels that expect to operate before June 2017.
“Shaikh Mohammad’s directives offer new and exciting opportunities for hotel investors,” Helal Al Merri, director-general of DTCM, said in a statement. “They will act as a stimulus to the sector and help to broaden our current accommodation offering, particularly within the three and four star segment, which is needed to meet the targets outlined in the Dubai Tourism Vision for 2020.”
In addition, the directives could “reduce the development timeframe” of hotels and “bring properties to the market quicker,” Christopher Hewett, senior consultant at TRI Hospitality Consulting, told Gulf News.
According to Hussain Lootah, director-general of Dubai Municipality, the new rules will identify and address opportunities for streamlining the hotel development sector with both the public and private sectors.
“Our aim is to continue Dubai’s journey, to further progress from our position as the region’s leading tourism and business destination to being recognised as a global leader in trade and tourism,” he said. “To achieve this, we will demand and help our partners to deliver world-class buildings standards and to create an environment of high-quality, sustainable growth.”
