Bahrain is the third most popular destination in the Arabian Gulf. In 2009, 7.9 million international visitors came to the island kingdom – most of them day-trippers from Saudi Arabia. Of those visitors, just over two million were tourists. Unfortunately, that was almost 1 million fewer than in 2008. The economic recession has taken its toll but while overnight visits were down, the number of day-trippers rose – from 5.2 million visitors in 2008, to 5.4 million visitors in 2009.

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Each profile contains information on:

Tourist arrivals - overnights and expenditure

Purpose of visit - business, leisure or VFR

Accommodation supply - operating performance

Tourism policy - management

Transport - access and infrastructure

Tourism funding - promotion and future development