Holiday home management · Dubai
Direct·Ops runs your apartment as a nightly holiday home in season and a monthly stay out of it — vetted local staff at every check-in and turnover, agentic AI behind them on the guest desk, the pricing and every filing; cleaning included. You pay a share of what we generate, on a rate that drops when the season does. Nothing up front.
We operate where the season swings hardest. Dubai peaks in winter. Italy peaks in summer. Opposite calendars, same system.
How it works
One property. Two modes.
A seasonal property earns for part of the year and sits empty for the rest. Owners treat that as inevitable. It isn’t. Nightly letting earns far more while tourists are paying — and collapses when they stop: Dubai market occupancy fell to 17–22% in spring 2026, with nightly rates down 55% on the year before. Monthly held — 29+ night stays tripled year on year and now make up roughly a third of booked nights, at a stable median rate. So we run both, and switch deliberately. The industry calls it hybrid or flexible letting. We run it as standard.
Peak modenightly
18%
Dubai October–April · Italy May–September
- Sold nightly on Airbnb, Booking and your property’s own site.
- Around four check-ins a month, every one legally registered.
- More work, higher rate — materially more revenue when the demand is there.
Hold modemonthly · 29+ nights
12%
Dubai May–September · Italy October–April
- Sold as 29+ night stays on local portals and relocation channels.
- One check-in a month. Near-zero cancellation risk.
- Fills the months that would otherwise sit empty.
The switch
60–90 days ahead, the system reviews forward booking pace, the event calendar and rate achievement for each block of dates, and recommends a mode. You see the reasoning — and you can override it.
Why two rates
Nightly means roughly 47 stays a year; monthly means twelve. A flat rate quietly overcharges the quiet months — so ours drops to 12% when the work and the money drop. That drop, not the headline number, is the product: a rate built for how a seasonal market actually earns.
And it beats the “safe” long-term lease — Dubai rents fell 6.2% quarter on quarter in Q2 2026, and a sitting tenancy complicates a sale.
The engine
Run by agentic AI. Priced like it.
Most management runs on people and spreadsheets — the payroll is in the fee, whatever the headline says. Direct·Ops was built the other way round: agentic AI runs the systems end to end — the guest desk, the pricing, every filing — and vetted local staff do the physical work. A structurally lower cost to serve is what lets us include the cleaning, skip the setup fee, and drop the rate for the off-season. Agentic AI is where this industry is going; we simply built there first.
Humans at the door
Vetted local staff do every check-in in person — as Emaar communities have required since 29 January 2025 — plus the keys, the cleaning and the inspections. Complaints and emergencies go to a person. The AI never guesses alone.
The guest desk
Every message answered in seconds, 24/7, in seven languages — website, WhatsApp and the OTA inboxes. You can talk to it yourself further down.
Pricing and the switch
The dual-mode engine reads booking pace, the event calendar and rate achievement 60–90 days ahead, and recommends nightly or monthly per block of dates.
Compliance, filed by machine
Guest registration within its three-hour window, Tourism Dirham on the 1st, renewals before they lapse — deadlines are exactly what software never misses.
This isn’t a claim — the same system is live with real guests in Italy and Thailand today, and you can ask it something yourself.
Founding Operator — until 1 October 2026
13% peak / 9% hold, locked for 24 months.
First 10 properties onboarded before 1 October 2026.
Why it exists
The system does the work, so our cost to serve is lower — and we would rather have your property performing in our first Dubai winter than charge full rate for an empty one.
The cap is real
Ten, because each property gets licensed, furnished, photographed and configured properly. We don’t onboard faster than we can operate.
The deadline is real
Peak season starts in October and books ahead. A property onboarded in November has already missed the best weeks.
13 in the months that earn, 9 in the months that hold — a founding rate that still drops for the off-season, like the plan it locks.
After 24 months the rate reverts to the standard 18% peak / 12% hold — stated here, not in small print.
The numbers
Anyone quoting you one number is selling.
The published figures for a Dubai short-term let disagree by more than two-to-one — because buildings, units and operators differ that much:
70,000
AirDNA — mean revenue per listing, trailing 12 months
112,000
Reliant Surveyors — median annual revenue, all unit types, to Sep 2025
160,000
Strongest month on record — annualised
AED gross per year. Three honest sources, three different universes — which is exactly why we won’t quote your unit a single number without auditing it.
So here is a band, downside first.
Illustrative one-bedroom on the 365 Plan, AED per year, cleaning included. A long-term lease on the same unit pays about 96,000 — and fell 6.2% quarter on quarter in Q2 2026.
A bad year
gross 120,000 · you keep 105,600
Nightly demand collapses (spring 2026 ran −55% on nightly rates) and the property spends the year in hold mode at soft monthly rates.
A typical year
gross 168,000 · you keep 142,800
A fair season each way — nightly months at median achieved rates, monthly the rest.
A strong year
gross 222,000 · you keep 188,760
A well-run one-bedroom in a strong building: five nightly months at achieved peak rates. The top of the band, not the expectation.
Even the bad year — nightly demand gone, the property held in monthly mode — keeps 105,600, ahead of the lease. The strong year keeps 188,760. Your audit places your unit inside this band, month by month, with the reasoning shown — and the guarantees cap the downside: beat the lease, or you don’t pay us.
What’s included
Everything the property needs. One number.
- Licence and permit registrationAED 3,000+
- Listing build across five channelsAED 2,500+
- Dual-mode revenue management and the switch decisionAED 6,000/yr
- 24/7 guest communication in seven languagesAED 9,000/yr
- All cleaning and turnovers — no cleaning fees, everAED 9,000/yr
- Legal check-in, every timeAED 3,500/yr
- Every regulatory filing inside its deadlineAED 4,000/yr
- Maintenance coordinationAED 3,000/yr
- Your own booking site and social presenceAED 6,000/yr
- Monthly statement, funds held separatelyAED 1,200/yr
Assembled separately: AED 47,200 in year one. The 365 Plan costs nothing up front and is paid only out of money already earned.
Furnishing is priced separately — see the packages.
No cleaning fees. Not to you, not to your guests.
Cleaning is inside our commission. Vetted professionals, inspected after every turnover — and if a guest ever complains about cleanliness, we re-clean and cover it ourselves.
What this fixes: the most documented complaint in this market is a quoted 28% that becomes 38% through add-ons. Cleaning runs AED 150–500 a turnover elsewhere, setup fees run AED 1,000–5,000, and at least one major operator’s published schedule requires owners to supply their own linen and towels. With us there is one number and no add-ons. It helps your guests too — listings without separate cleaning fees rank better, because the platforms penalise high fees relative to stay value.
The direct channel
Your property gets its own front door.
Every property we run gets its own booking website and social presence, included in the commission. We report the outcome rather than promise it: your direct-booking share appears in every monthly statement.
Why it matters more this year: Airbnb is moving all hosts to a single host-only fee of about 15.5% — from 15 September 2026 in the UAE, 13 October 2026 in the EEA. Under the old split, a direct booking saved an owner around 3%. Under the new one, around 15.5%. Every booking we move off the platforms is now worth roughly five times what it was last year.
For calibration, without promises: market-wide, direct runs about a third of bookings; most operators sit under 25%; the strongest publish 40–50%.
Your front desk never sleeps.
This is not a mockup. Ask it something.
This is the agentic AI that answers your guests — the same engine that runs the pricing and the filings. Behave like a guest: ask about check-in, a late arrival, the wifi, extending a stay — or complain, and watch it hand you to a human.
- 1
A guest writes at 2:14 AM.
Website chat, WhatsApp, Airbnb or Booking — every message reaches the same system, in the guest's language.
- 2
It answers from the property's knowledge.
House rules, arrival, the calendar, the local guide — only what is actually written down. No guessing.
- 3
The critical ones wait for a human.
Complaints, refunds and emergencies never auto-send. Automation with a handbrake.
Every guest message about your property is answered like this, in seconds, at any hour — and every check-in is filed with the regulator inside its legal deadline, automatically.
Operator, not agency
We operate our own properties.
The systems that will run your apartment already run ours — built by an operator, not a software company. Dubai is permit-first: every property is registered with DET before its first guest.
Villa Aura
Frascati · Italy
Our own villa — guests answered on villaaura.it and WhatsApp since spring 2026, direct bookings on its own site.
Joy Beach Villas
Koh Phangan · Thailand
A 13-villa beachfront resort we run guest operations for — every villa on the same system, in seven languages.
The Occupancy Report
Each month we will publish our book against the market average, dated. First report publishes after our first full month of operation.
The operator
“I run my own properties — the midnight messages, the turnovers, the filings. Direct·Ops runs yours the same way: the system does the routine, vetted people do the physical work, and anything that matters still comes to a human.”
A Dubai-based, tech-driven real-estate investment consultant who operates his own properties in Italy and Thailand — now running owners' apartments in Dubai on The 365 Plan.
Sebastian Boll · Founder · Direct·Ops
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Fair questions.
My building says holiday homes aren't allowed.+
No developer or owners association can lawfully ban a licensed holiday home — DTCM has ruled on it. A letter from your building does not override a DET permit. We handle the permit and the paperwork; if your building pushes back, that conversation is ours to have, not yours.
My permit lapsed. Is that a problem?+
It's common and fixable. We re-register the property as part of onboarding — permit, Tourism Dirham, guest registration — and every filing after that lands inside its deadline. You start clean.
What if tourism doesn't come back?+
That is exactly why the plan has two modes. When nightly demand is weak, the property switches to monthly stays of 29+ nights — Dubai's 29+ night segment tripled year on year in 2026 while nightly rates fell. The system earns in the market that exists, not the one we hope for.
Can I use the property myself?+
Yes. Personal-use blocks are agreed in the management agreement and built into the calendar. The guarantees stay valid as long as your blocks stay within the agreed allowance.
Do I pay for cleaning?+
No. Not you, not your guests. Cleaning and turnovers are inside our commission — no linen programmes, no add-ons, no separate fees. If a guest ever complains about cleanliness, we re-clean and cover it ourselves.
Other operators quote lower headline rates. Why pay yours?+
Compare the year, not the headline. A flat rate charges the same in the months your property barely earns; ours drops to 12% (founding 9%) exactly then. And 'included' is worth real money here: setup fees across this market run AED 1,000–5,000, cleaning AED 150–500 per turnover, and at least one major operator's published schedule requires owners to supply their own linen and towels. We charge none of that. Bring any competitor's contract to the audit and we'll run both side by side on your unit.
How can the rate drop for the off-season?+
Because agentic AI, not payroll, runs our systems — guest desk, pricing, filings — the cost of serving a quiet month is genuinely low, and we price it that way instead of pocketing the difference. The AI explains the price; people still do every check-in, clean and inspection.
What still needs a human?+
Complaints, emergencies, refunds and anything financial never auto-send — they reach a person with the full context. Physical check-ins are done legally, in person, by vetted local staff. The AI does the routine; humans do the judgement.
What happens if I want to sell?+
Nightly mode leaves no sitting tenancy, so the property can be shown and sold far more easily than under a twelve-month lease. Give us 30 days' notice after the initial 90 and we hand everything over — including to your buyer, if they want to keep it earning.
How and when do I get paid?+
On the 10th of every month, for the month before — a date, not a 'processing window'. The statement shows gross booking revenue, platform commission, our fee and your net, with the fee calculated on gross and stated as such. Funds sit in a segregated account; only the commission is Direct·Ops revenue.
Who holds the guest's money?+
It sits in a segregated client account, separate from our operating funds, until it is settled to you with your monthly statement. We never bank your revenue as ours.
How do I get out?+
A 90-day initial term, then 30 days' notice — stated on the pricing page, not buried. On exit you get a full handover: your data, your listings, your reviews, your direct-booking site.
Peak season is booking right now.
The Founding Operator rate ends at 10 properties or 1 October 2026, whichever comes first. The audit is free and it’s a document, not a sales call.