Under new guidelines issued earlier this week by the Ras Al Khaimah Economic Department, local hotels and serviced hotel apartments should obtain independent licenses to be allowed to serve any alcoholic beverages, to establish bars or pubs, and to run nightclubs and restaurants which show artistic programming to clients.
Additionally, in an attempt to organize the emirate's burgeoning hotel industry, the new law will also groups hotels into five distinct categories of classification, while distinguishing between types of hotel apartments by grouping them into two separate categories, according to Gulf News.
The new law also stipulates that all hotel and serviced apartments will be required to attain appropriate classification as well as official permission to operate from the Ras Al Khaimah Economic Department. If they do not, the law reads, they risk losing their licenses for operation from the Economic Department.
Najeeb Al Shamsi, the department's director-general, said that owners of the hotel or serviced hotel apartment will have the right to apply through the department to change the hotel's classification. He added that the department reserved the sole right to alter the classification of the hotel or the hotel apartment when the situation was deemed appropriate by its officials.
