The Persian Gulf city of Abu Dhabi has decided to cut down tourism-related fees to encourage the ailing hospitality sector and attract more visitors to its own soil. The oil-rich emirate looks to invest billions of dollars in industry, infrastructure and tourism to diversify its economy away from oil.
In the process, Abu Dhabi has reduced tourism fees from 6 to 3.5 %, municipal fees from 4 to 2 % and municipality hotel room fees per night from 15 dirhams ($4) to 10 ($2.72) dirhams, as confirmed by the Department of Culture & Tourism (DCT), on Tuesday.
A recent study conducted by the department, on Abu Dhabi’s hotels, showed that in 2018, around 15.9 million tourists have landed on the soil of the neighboring Dubai, whereas Abu Dhabi had to be satisfied with 10 million tourist foot falls. The move of reducing the tourism related fees came after this study only.
After oil, it is tourism that generates revenue for the province to meet its demands. As the under-secretary of DCT Saif Saeed Ghobash said, “The tourism sector is a key alternative to oil. Which again makes it more necessary to support the sector as it is being hurdled to contribute to the achievement of future goals.”
He added, the decision of fee-reduction will give a financial impact of 1 billion dirhams over the next three years. During the same period DCT also plans to spend 500 million dirhams towards the marketing of its tourist attractions, that comes under the Abu Dhabi government’s accelerators program called Ghadan 21.
Presently, Abu Dhabi is boasting its top attractions like the Formula One Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the Warner Bros. world-themed indoor park and many more. Also two more museums, the Guggenheim and the Zayed National Museum, are planned to be the recent additions.
