Tourism Dirham 2.0 In Your PMS - A 2025 Compliance Checklist
Dubai’s hotels live at the intersection of guest delight and strict city compliance. “Tourism Dirham 2.0” is the shorthand many teams use for the latest, tidied-up rules around Dubai’s nightly fee, still simple on paper, but easy to misconfigure in software. This guide gives you a clean, practical property management system PMS explained view, so your tourism dirham dubai PMS setup is accurate, auditable, and guest-friendly.
First, what “Tourism Dirham 2.0” means for your system
Operationally, you need your PMS to charge a per-room, per-night fee aligned with the hotel’s category, apply it consistently across channels, cap it at the mandated maximum number of nights per stay, and report it accurately. Think of it as four layers: (1) fee mapping, (2) posting logic, (3) guest-facing transparency, (4) export/report control.
Pre-flight: governance and mapping
- Appoint an owner. Name a single “fee steward” (often Revenue or Front Office Manager) who approves changes and signs off on monthly reconciliations.
- Create a unique PMS code. Use a dedicated transaction/charge code (e.g., TDRM) with the correct taxability and GL mapping. Never recycle a generic “City Tax” code. Audits hate ambiguity.
- Keep it separate from rates. Rates and packages should be fee-exclusive; the Tourism Dirham should be posted as its own line item to avoid double-charging or hiding it inside a package.
- Define clear exemptions/edge cases. Pre-decide rules for no-shows, day-use, complimentary rooms, house use, and staff rates. Include this in your SOP and replicate it in the PMS posting rules.
The 2025 compliance checklist (save this)
- Accurate hotel category mapping
Confirm your current classification in the PMS (hotel/aparthotel/resort and star level). Your posting amount should be derived from this classification, rather than being hard-coded by rate plan.
- Per-room, per-night logic
The posting engine must multiply by the number of occupied rooms and nights, not by the number of adults/children. Apartments with multiple bedrooms but one “room” in PMS should be tested carefully.
- Cap the nights automatically
Apply an automatic cap per stay according to the current rule (do not rely on agents to remember). Test back-to-back bookings with the same guest and continuous dates to ensure you don’t exceed the cap.
- Handle multi-room reservations properly
If one guest books three rooms, the fee is per room. Ensure your PMS splits postings across sub-folios or child reservations rather than lumping everything into the master.
- No hidden fees inside packages
If you sell “City Break” packages, keep Tourism Dirham outside the package allowance. Otherwise, you’ll under-report and over-complicate reconciliations.
- Channel parity and OTAs
In your channel manager/PMS mapping, ensure that rate inclusions match those on the hotel's website. The fee should appear as a mandatory, property-collected charge on OTAs, not baked into the net rate.
- Folio clarity and invoice text
Use guest-friendly wording, such as “Tourism Dirham (per room, per night),” on folios. Place it directly under room charges so it’s visible at check-out. Put the Arabic equivalent in parentheses if your brand standards allow.
- Late check-out, early check-in, and day-use
Define whether a day-use stay triggers the fee in your SOP and configure a rule in PMS to post or suppress accordingly. Consistency beats case-by-case exceptions.
- Back-dating and corrections
Lock the fee code at night audit, but allow a controlled correction path with notes. Any manual waiver should require a reason code (e.g., system error, duplicate posting, extended-stay cap).
- Monthly export and GL reconciliation
Create a saved report: Date, Reservation No., Guest Name, Room, Nights Charged, Fee Amount, Waivers, Net Collected, and a GL summary line. Reconcile this against PMS production and your accounting system on a monthly basis.
How to test your tourism dirham Dubai PMS setup
Run a mini “test lab” before go-live or after any software update:
- Five golden scenarios: 1-night stay, 7-night stay, 31-night stay (cap test), multi-room reservation, and day-use.
- Three channels: direct web, OTA, and corporate. Check that the fee preview/confirmation matches the folio at check-out.
- Two edge edits: shorten a stay; extend beyond the cap. Ensure the postings are added/removed correctly.
Document the results with screenshots and keep them with your monthly audit pack.
Team training & guest messaging
- Front Office script: “Dubai applies a nightly Tourism Dirham, charged per room. You’ll see it itemised here.” Train agents to proactively display it during pre-authorization to reduce disputes.
- Pre-arrival email snippet: Place a single sentence in your confirmation template (not buried in fine print). Consistency across languages matters.
- Escalation path: If a guest contests the fee, staff should know when to involve a supervisor and how to add a note to the folio for audit clarity.
Avoid these common pitfalls
- Double-posting through packages or manual entries by “helpful” agents locks down permissions.
- Wrong classification after a re-grading if your star rating changed, your fee likely did too. Update mapping immediately.
- Capping by reservation, not by stay. Be aware of split bookings or back-to-back reservations that should be treated as a single continuous stay.
- OTA inconsistencies: If an OTA shows the fee as “included,” you’ll still incur the cost. Fix at the source via channel mapping.
Reporting that keeps Finance happy
Use a monthly dashboard with:
- Total rooms sold vs rooms charged (variance highlights missed postings).
- Waiver rate (waived/charged) with reason codes.
- Average fee per occupied room (helps spot classification or mapping errors).
Export the data as a CSV file to accounting, and store the signed-off dashboard in your DET compliance folder.
Quick-start template (copy/paste to your SOP)
- Unique PMS code TDRM - mapped to correct GL.
- Folio label: “Tourism Dirham (per room, per night)”.
- Posting rule: per occupied room, per night, with an auto-cap at the mandated maximum.
- Package policy: never included; always itemised.
- Channels: marked as property-collected fee on OTAs.
- Audit: 5-scenario test after each PMS update; monthly reconciliation report saved and signed.
Done right, your tourism dirham Dubai PMS setup is invisible to guests and bullet-proof in audits. Save this checklist to your DubaiCityGuide.com playbook, run the five tests, and make the Tourism Dirham a tidy, reliable line never a front-desk surprise.
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