What are the tourism arrivals into Bahrain you have witnessed in the year so far?
In 2007, we saw approximately 560,715 non-GCC tourists and approx 4,951,690 GCC tourists into the country. This is about 7 to 10 per cent of growth from the year before, however our goal is to see an increase in arrival growth rate by 25 per cent. There is a huge potential. We work closely with WTO and participate in their workshops and seminars programmes, where we try to learn from other destinations about tourism growth. We are also working closely with them to set a hotel classification system. It is a three year project which includes assessing, training staff and implementing the classification system. Certification will elevate the quality of hotels; give us better hotels and better rooms. Most of the five star properties usually abide by these standards, but it is the level of the rest of the hotels that we want to upgrade for our tourists. Bahrain has traditionally promoted itself has a family destination. Is this still the case? Bahrain is a city which has multiple dimensions
