Tourism
From The Report: Bahrain 2013
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Events have been planned to celebrate Bahrain’s year as the Capital of Arab Tourism in 2013. MICE venues, such as the Bahrain Exhibition and Conference Authority’s complex at Sanabis, seek to offer a diverse range of meeting spaces, often in conjunction with hotels. Cruise ships are expected to further boost visitor numbers: the kingdom saw a record number of cruise ship arrivals for Bahrain in the 2011-12 season, and an estimated 70,000 cruise tourists are expected during the 2012-13 season. The authorities are also looking to upgrade the quality of accommodation on offer at the lower end of the market to broaden appeal to families.

Articles from this Chapter

Overview

Consolidating recovery: A unique heritage and growing MICE segment boost diversification
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In many ways, Bahrain has traditionally been something of a trailblazer in the region. It was the first country in the Gulf to discover oil, and, given the relatively small size of its reserves, was the first to establish a tourism industry as a means to diversify its economy. In the 1970s and 1980s, Bahrain positioned itself as the conference, shopping and leisure destination for the whole of the Gulf. Although other such centres have now emerged in the region, as other countries seek to emulate…

Analysis

All aboard: Efforts to energise the sector through cruise ship tourism gain traction
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As part of its efforts to relaunch its tourism industry and differentiate itself from other Gulf destinations, Bahrain is looking to move into the lucrative cruise ship market. As many other small island nations have found, the cruise industry offers several advantages. First, it tends to attract customers from the higher end of the income spectrum, precisely the ideal demographic for a country focusing on family-oriented tourism. Secondly, cruise tourism helps to avoid head-to-head competition…

Analysis

Widening its appeal: Better accommodation and more business visitors aid the hotel trade
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Although the unrest of 2011 has had a knock-on effect in many sectors of the economy, one area which has held up relatively well has been the hotel segment. During the rapid economic growth in Bahrain in the 2000s, a great deal of money found its way into real estate, and within that sector, the hotel industry offered promising returns. Bahrain continues to have a substantial tourist trade, which was worth around BD538.3m ($1.42bn), or 5% of GDP in 2012, according to the World Travel and Tourism…