The Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi) has launched an initiative to decrease tourism and municipality fees for hotels in Abu Dhabi.
The initiative is part of Abu Dhabi government’s accelerator programme 'Ghadan 21', and the aim of the initiative is to further drive the development of the Emirate’s tourism sector.
The initiatives will decrease tourism and municipality fees for hotels in Abu Dhabi, exempt long-term hotel guests and visitors from daily municipality fees, as well as increase investments in attracting tourists.The tourism and municipality fee reductions are estimated to increase available capital for hotels by AED 1 billion (US$0.27bn) over the next three years.
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DCT Abu Dhabi undersecretary HE Saif Saeed Ghobash confirmed that the initiatives have already started being implemented across the sector.
The overall tourism and municipality fees for hotels in Abu Dhabi will be reduced from 10% to 5.5% (tourism fees from 6% to 3.5%, and municipality fees from 4% to 2%), while the daily municipality fee will be reduced from AED 15 ($4) to AED 10 ($2.72) for each hotel room.
All tourism and municipality fees on any tourist attraction tickets sold by the hotels will also be removed, while long-term visitors (30 or more consecutive nights) will be exempt from the daily municipality fee to encourage extended stays at hotels.
The frequency of fee collection will be changed from monthly to semi-annually, giving hotel owners access to more capital to help with continual improvements and the quality of their offerings.
To support the Abu Dhabi toursim sector in attracting more visitors, DCT Abu Dhabi will invest directly AED 500 million ($136m) in promoting Abu Dhabi in major tourism target markets globally. The move comes after Abu Dhabi achieved a record of number of visitors and hotel guest in 2018, with a 3.94% growth in hotel guests compared to 2017. Over the year, more than 10 million visitors arrived in Abu Dhabi from around the world.
The Ghadan 21 programme was declared by His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, and Chairman of the Executive Council of Abu Dhabi to accelerate the existing economic agenda.
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