Ministry of Culture’s Forum on Bahrain Tourism and its Role in Developing Local Community

Ministry of Culture ,
28 September 2014, Bahrain

Enhancing the role of Tourism in development of Bahrain’s economy sectors and marking the World Tourism Day, the Ministry of Culture, represented by H.E. Shaikha Mai bint Mohammed Al-Khalifa, organized a forum on “ Tourism and development of Local Communities” on 28 September 2014. The conference was attended by H.E Sheikh Khalid Bin Hamood Al-Khalifa, Tourism Sector Undersecretary, hotel accommodations sector associations, private and public businesses, non-governmental, and international and regional experts.


H.E Sheikh Khalid Bin Hamood Al-Khalifa inaugurated the forum by a speech in which he highlighted the importance of the Bahrain Tourism Strategy 2015-2018, which will be revealed next November. H.E also said that the tourism sector is using different means and plans to preserve the progressive development in this regard, pointing to the annual reports evaluating tourism institutions in accordance with world tourism and other web sites, as well as implementing a series of new hotel evaluation techniques.


Dr. Hiba Abdualaziz, Ministry of Culture’s Tourism Affairs Consultant, argued that the Bahrain Tourism forum this year presents an opportunity to establish comprehensive public-private partnerships. Dr Hiba also said that this meeting is an open space for ideas aimed at enriching and developing the tourism sector.


The forum also highlighted the importance of the relationship between tourism and local community’s development, through two presentations by Dr. Ramesh Rotratana, East Asia Regional Deputy Director of IUCN, India and China, who argued that developing the local community through tourism depends largely on individuals, society’s cultural heritage, encouraging tolerance, and social cooperation.


In the second presentation by Mr. Amitava Batajaria, founder and director of banglanatak.com, Mr. Amitava pointed out that tourism sector development relies heavily on cultural diversity, in addition to the tangible and intangible cultural heritage to be used as a necessary tool to enhance individuals “participation in tourism development.”


The forum also discussed the main topics with regard to Bahrain Tourism Strategy 2015-2018 and its strategic objectives aimed at developing a sustainable Bahraini tourism industry capable of competing locally and internationally. The strategy presentation also stressed the need to ensure that tourism contributes to the enrichment and safeguarding of the cultural identity of Bahrain, promoting cross cultural exchanges between visitors and the host community, raising awareness about the unique opportunities provided by tourism to educate both visitors and local communities about the unique cultural heritage and identity of Bahrain. Finding new attraction destinations for visitors and developing cultural infrastructure, such as museums, heritage exhibitions and others, would eventually lead to the promotion of family tourism generated by all-year- long events and festivities.

http://www.moc.gov.bh/en/mediacenter/news/2014/September2014/Name,11679,en.html