$291mln investment in tourism sector: Bahrain

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Bahrain’s tourism sector attracted $291 million (BD110m) in direct investments during the first three quarters of 2022, the Bahrain Economic Development Board (Bahrain EDB), the national investment promotion agency has announced.

Tourism investments are coming through eight companies expanding or entering Bahrain for the first time and are expected to generate over 1090 jobs over the next three years.

In total, Bahrain EDB attracted $921m (BD348m) in direct investment from 66 companies during the first nine months of the year.

The investments are expected to generate over 4,700 jobs over the next three years in key sectors, including financial services, ICT, logistics, manufacturing, and tourism.

Munther Al Mudawi, business development executive director for tourism at the Bahrain EDB, commented: “We are pleased to witness this momentum in the tourism sector post Covid-19. All the indicators showing that we are in the right direction to recover, and with our four-year Tourism Strategy under the Economic Recovery Plan, we are hoping to attract even more investments and welcome 14m tourists by 2026.”

As part of the Economic Recovery Plan, Bahrain announced a new four-year strategy (2022-26) for the tourism sector that aims to attract 14.1m tourists by 2026.

The framework has four main objectives: To increase the contribution of the tourism sector to GDP to reach 11.4 per cent in 2026, highlight Bahrain’s position as a global tourist hub, increase the number of targeted countries to attract more tourists, and diversify tourism products.

According to the latest statistics, Bahrain registered 6.9m visitors by the end of September 2022. The hospitality and hotel sector recorded around 5.9m tourist nights, and the total tourism revenues amounted to around $1.7 billion (BD622.4m) during the first half of 2022.