His Excellency Helal Saeed Almarri, Director-General of DTCM has revealed that the Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM) will continue to push for more mid-market hotels in the emirate.
The Dubai Annual Visitor Report, launched today, reveals that DTCM has received applications for 46 hotels, representing 14,339 rooms since it introduced its incentive scheme for the segment in Q4 2013.
This includes the waiver of municipality feels on a hotel for the first few years of operation.
“When you look at our targets and incentives it’s mainly because we have a lot more five-star than we need especially when you look at the MICE and business tourism sector. A lot of business visitors needs three- and four- star,” commented H.E. Almarri at a press conference today.
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“The segment is growing from strength to strength and it’s important that that’s backed up by the room capacity that’s needed.
“Additionally when it comes to the type of configurations and room sizes, hoteliers have been working hard to optimise that to ensure they develop the right type of products for the market.”
The new report reveals that of the 46 properties that have been applied for in the mid-market segment, 18 of these are three-star, representing 4413 rooms, while 28 are four-star, comprising 9926 rooms in total.
No further incentives have been introduced since the launch of the fee concession in 2013, and there are no plans for more at the moment.
Five-star hotels will continue to be a focus for DTCM, according to HE Almarri.
“We put in an incentive programme and we’ve not looked at other incentives above that – that seems to be going well. We’ve had 46 new hotels in the last year so it’s been positive.
“This doesn’t mean people aren’t building five star – there’s still a very strong demand and focus for investors to build five star – especially in prime locations and on the beach and it’s important for us to encourage that,” he said.
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