Dubai Tourism opens up Holiday Home regulations to drive sector growth

Enhanced Regulations Empower Individuals to Help Drive Sector Competiveness and
Transparency as Part of Wider Hospitality Segment Growth

Dubai’s Department of Tourism & Commerce Marketing (Dubai Tourism) has updated its regulations surrounding holiday homes to become more competitive, with the most significant amendments positively impacting individual owners and better enhancing the emirate’s holiday home segment through greater transparency, safety, standardisation and competitiveness.

Under the new resolution, private home owners can apply for a holiday home licence without the need to go through an approved Dubai Tourism operator, providing they meet all criteria. In addition, tenants who are renting a property can also lease their accommodation as a holiday home with a short-term permit, providing they submit a no objection certificate from their landlord and meet all Dubai Tourism-specified requirements.

Under the new initiative, individual owners and authorised tenants do not need to go through the more detailed licence requirement submissions as is the case for professional operators, making the process more streamlined. Dubai Tourism has upgraded its application portal to facilitate these new licence applications, and will shortly allow for all e-commerce payments to be done digitally, making it one of the most progressive destinations to use the system globally.

The move is part of Dubai’s objective to further diversify and increase its hospitality offering in line with its Tourism Vision to attract 20 million visitors per year to the emirate by 2020, and complements the positive growth trends in the city’s wider hotel and hotel apartment segment to cater to diversifying traveller demographics and needs.

Khaled Bin Touq, Executive Director, Tourism Activities & Classification Sector, Dubai Tourism, said: “As part of the dialogue with our partners, the industry and providers, we are continuously looking at how to enhance our overall offering to ensure Dubai remains competitive and appeals to an evolving diversity of travellers. Through the implementation of streamlined processes and a conducive and supportive regulatory environment, underpinned by a strong digitised administrative environment in line with Dubai’s Smart Government initiatives, we continue to put in place the necessary market conditions to stimulate the growth of the tourism sector in a safe, secure and controlled manner while ensuring that the high standards of quality for which Dubai is known are maintained.”

The new regulations also detail all requirements that home owners need to meet to apply for a licence, including quality standards, amenities, health and safety, insurance necessities, code of conduct and wider community integration. Only full accommodation rental will be allowed, with room sharing rental prohibited.

Home owners are also accountable for ensuring the property meets all legislative requirements and complaint management policies, is accurately listed to visitors, and is sufficiently maintained,with all necessary amenities and guest services provided for.

Dubai Tourism will regularly inspect registered homes – classified as Standard or Deluxe depending on their offering – to maintain standards and issue penalties for non-compliance with regulatory demands.

*Image credit: Website of Dubai Furnished Apartments