10 million tourists visited Bahrain in 2015

More than 10 million tourists visited the Kingdom Bahrain last year and the Kingdom is looking forward to an annual increase of approximately 8% this year, according to Bahrain Authority for Tourism and Exhibitions (BATE)'s Acting CEO, Shaikh Khalid bin Humood Al Khalifa.
Shaikh Khalid told Akhbar Al Khaleej daily on Wednesday that the Government of Bahrain represented in the Directorate of Tourism has put in huge efforts culminating in the selection of Manama as the Gulf Capital for Tourism2016, and we have succeeded in the allocation of a budget for this important event. 
We have inked agreements to hold numerous family entertainment activities to attract more tourists from the sisterly Arab Gulf states.

He said plans were underway according to a previous study and not randomly. The Directorate of Tourism assisted with specialists had conducted a study to glean the wishes of Arab Gulf tourists incoming to Bahrain and to find out about their interests. In the activities, it was observed that they coincided with the holiday season in Gulf states - especially in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar. 

The survey has shown that the Gulf tourist prefers staying in apartments by 34% in contrast with 26% for rooms. This led the Directorate to encourage more investments in hotel apartments for the purpose of filling the gap in this sector, he added.