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Bahrain 9th most visited country by per capita, says study

Manama : Bahrain is the ninth most visited country as measured by per capita, according to a study conducted by TravelMag.com. The Kingdom receives 3000 visitors per annum every year. It fares as one of the most popular destinations in the world, taking into account the small population of the country. The study revealed that Bahrain is the ninth most visited country per capita. It was conducted by taking the annual visitor numbers to every sovereign country (with a population of at least 100,000) and comparing them against the total number of citizens. The data for the study was used from a report released by the United Nations World Tourism Organization(UNWTO) and alternate sources.  

“With 6,600 visitors per 1,000 citizens arriving in Iceland each year, the beautiful island nation emerged on top. The Central Mediterranean island of Malta was in second place with 5,300 visitors, while the Bahamas in the Caribbean completed the top three spots with 3,800 visitors,” the report stated. Yemen, Libya, Somalia, Afghanistan and the Central African Republic were the least visited countries in the world.

“At the other end of the spectrum Somalia, Yemen and Libya came out as the least visited counties, with less than one visitor per 1,000 citizens. While no UNWTO data was available for these destinations, tourist arrivals are close to zero according to various independent sources,” TravelMag.com stated. While some of the most popular countries for tourism like France and the UK received many visitors, it still fared worse when compared to its population size. “The UK has seen a big increase in tourism thanks to the pound sterling’s drop in value after Brexit, but still only sees 569 visitors per 1,000 inhabitants.

France received more visitors than any other country in the world at almost 87 million, putting their total at 1,340 per 1,000.  And as for India, the vast population (1.32 billion and climbing rapidly), coupled with pricey visas hampers the numbers greatly, with only 11.7 visitors per 1,000,” it stated. More than 11 million people visited Bahrain last year. Most of the tourists (57 per cent) were on leisure trips, 23 per cent came for shopping, 9pc came to visit family and friends, 6pc for business and the remaining were transit passengers. The biggest spenders’ among tourists in Bahrain are Arab tourists. Last year, Bahrain earned BD1.6 billion from tourism. An average of BD1696 was spent by Arab tourists on a five-day trip.