Media, not the hotels themselves, often label hotels like Burj Al Arab as “six-star” or “seven-star” hotels.
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Dubai is scrapping its 30% tax on alcohol sales for the remaining of the yr, the emirate’s municipality announced Monday, the newest move in a series of liberalizing policy changes over the previous couple of years aimed toward boosting tourism and attracting more foreign residents.
“Dubai Municipality has temporarily stopped collecting the 30% fee from alcoholic beverage firms for a period of 1 yr from the start of 01/01/2023 to the tip of 12/31/2023. The businesses authorized to sell within the Emirate of Dubai have been notified of this decision,” Dubai Municipality wrote in a post from its official Twitter account.
The move is probably going a bid to extend tourism and stimulate more business amongst each visitors and residents as Dubai pushes forward in its goal to turn out to be the “happiest place on Earth.” Booze is notoriously pricey in Dubai, with a pint of beer often costing $15 and a glass of wine as much as $20 or more.
Local alcohol distributors announced the news first, with Dubai-based alcoholic beverage chain Maritime and Mercantile International (MMI) writing on its Facebook page on Sunday, “You may now: save 30% municipality tax on alcoholic beverages. We now have reflected this across all our pricing!” It added that the UAE’s 5% sales tax (VAT) still applies, nonetheless.
It also said that private liquor licenses, previously a requirement for all Dubai residents for purchasing alcohol in shops and costing 270 dirhams ($73.50), are actually free. Before Jan. 1, liquor licenses needed to be renewed yearly and had a processing time of about 4 weeks. Buying alcohol in bars nonetheless, didn’t require any license.
It isn’t certain whether the brand new free licenses will still have the identical processing times or renewal requirements. Dubai can also be the one emirate within the United Arab Emirates that required residents to acquire a liquor license for in-shop purchases; in five other emirates including Abu Dhabi, no license was required, and within the UAE’s more conservative emirate of Sharjah, the sale of alcohol shouldn’t be allowed.
Some Dubai residents were unhappy in regards to the abrupt announcement, having recently paid the complete fee for his or her yearly license.
“Just done the licensing couple of days back and paid for it. Can someone explain the way to this got here about? Why wasn’t this mentioned then?!” one Facebook user wrote in a comment on MMI’s post.
“My husband paid for the license 2 days ago, we wish you had said something! And he didn’t get any vouchers as per mentioned in your page and website. Definitely feel cheated,” one other user wrote.
Certainly one of the users said MMI offered her a free bottle of wine as compensation, which she described as “not acceptable.” CNBC has reached out to MMI for comment.
More broadly, residents celebrated and welcomed the news. The announcement also comes as neighboring Saudi Arabia ramps up its apparent drive to supplant the UAE because the tourism and business capital of the region. Saudi Arabia remains to be a dry country, and its strict laws and largely conservative society are barriers for a lot of prospective foreign residents.
The UAE, against this, and particularly its business capital of Dubai is home to a various 90% expatriate population and has long offered lifestyles comparable to those within the Western world. Town has countless bars, nightclubs and restaurants serving alcohol, conservative dress shouldn’t be required, every major religion can arrange places of worship, and cohabitation before marriage is legal, whereas in Saudi Arabia and another Gulf Arab states it shouldn’t be.
Woman sunbathers sit along a beach within the Gulf emirate of Dubai on July 24, 2020, while behind is seen the Burj al-Arab hotel.
KARIM SAHIB | AFP via Getty Images
The UAE also recently modified its Islamic weekend of Friday-Saturday to the Western weekend of Saturday-Sunday, to be consistent with much of the remaining of the world, and started offering a distant employee visa through the coronavirus pandemic as more people adopted a distant work lifestyle.
“Dubai has been a transparent standout when it comes to the speed of which its tourism market has recovered because the pandemic,” Karim Jetha, chief investment officer at Dubai-based asset management firm Longdean Capital, told CNBC.
“The choice to suspend alcohol taxes follows moves to vary its weekend to Saturday-Sunday and the widening of access to long-term residency visas. As a collective, these initiatives are should boost tourism and encourage more expatriates to consider Dubai as their home,” he said.
