‘Encourage more tourists; cut cost, avoid bottlenecks’

The Kingdom will do better in coming years if measures are taken to cut down the hassles and costs involved in entering Bahrain, according to a leading executive in Bahrain.

The trips across the causeway and the airport, two critical entry points to Bahrain, have to be made much easier and costs of visas should be brought down and more countries should be included in visa-on-arrival. This will facilitate more tourists and thus business activity in the Kingdom, according to Tony Connor, Chairman’s Representative, The Domain Hotel.

“Let’s make it easy to visit Bahrain for people from different countries; they will take the message across the world about the diversity and tolerance here and will tell the world that it is not like what comes in outside media; let them see that the Kingdom has Christians, Hindus, Jews and followers of other  religions along with Muslims,” he added.

Also, Bahrain will be better served if expats-entrepreneurs are allowed the same flexibility as the locals, and businesses registration can be done with entrepreneurs’ residence address, instead of current stipulation of different office address, this will trigger more start ups, Connor added.

He praised the Kingdom’s vision 2030 and opined that it is driving the country in the right direction and pace. “The 2030 vision is driving the economy in the right direction with new infrastructure and new projects on massive scale like one at Diyar Al Muharraq coming up.”

“The good thing about Bahrain is that it is slow, but steady.”

The Domain Hotel executive added that the Kingdom has received a great opportunity to build itself with the recent crash in commodities.

“Low oil price means that low transportation costs, low commodity costs, low flight cost. In Saudi the fuel costs haven’t gone up much and they will be more willing to visit the kingdom when costs are low.”

“Last week we had 365,000 visitors through the causeway, much higher than 250,000 visitors during the same time last year. Such huge jumps in visitors tell us that we are headed to good times, not bad,” he added.

“This is the most effective time to build, as the costs are low and the wages are steady . Look at the flow of visitors since the 2011 troubles, which has been a much higher impact on hospitality  sector than oil price changes or electricity price.

The fact that scenario has stabilised and we ceased  to be headline news in international media, we are heading to exciting growth.”

“I call this the sweet-16, an opportunity for the Kingdom to build its businesses in a low cost environment”

“The fact that people from all ethnic and religious groups can coexist in Bahrain and set an example of  tolerance should be highlighted.”

Toney said that his group has interest in 20 different companies  various sectors including banking,  manufacturing, property development, investment, hospitality and development projects coming up in

Bahrain including the latest, Marassi Al Bahrain and the vibes from the economy points to a great future.

“Our properties are all new and in this part of the world people prefer that when available at a slight  premium”

There are many established businesses in Bahrain but slowly people are moving away from those models and are creating new models, he said.