Bahrain moves to execute Gulf tourism recovery plan

The machinery of Gulf tourism recovery is moving from planning to execution. Bahrain, which secured regional approval for a joint global tourism campaign at a Gulf tourism meeting in Manama in September, says the plan will be implemented very soon. The Gulf Cooperation Council publicly announced approval of the tourism recovery plan on Sep. 10.

The initiative would bring together Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, and Kuwait in a coordinated effort to restore confidence in a tourism market where visitor numbers have collapsed following eight months of conflict with Iran.

“All the countries are on board and the plan will be implemented very soon,” H.E. Fatima bint Jaffar Al Sairafi, Bahrain’s minister of tourism, said at the Gulf Gateway investment forum in Bahrain.

The operational backdrop explains the urgency. Tourism in the Gulf states generated nearly $131.9 billion in 2025. Since the war began, however, the World Travel & Tourism Council estimated in March that the region was losing around $600 million per day in tourism revenues. In 2025 the region welcomed 75.7 million international tourists, according to UN Tourism, a 4.9% increase on the previous year, a level of performance tourism leaders are now working to rebuild from a sharply disrupted base.

At the center of the delivery plan is a shift in how the region packages itself. Rather than marketing each country as a standalone destination, the campaign is designed to promote multi-destination itineraries, encouraging international visitors to travel across several Gulf countries on one vacation.

“[We want to] promote our countries in terms of multi-destination itineraries rather than solo itineraries, that’s actually where our strength is,” Al Sairafi said.

Her model is the multi-country European vacation. Visitors making a long journey from Europe or Asia, including China, will be encouraged to explore neighboring Gulf states using the region’s road and air connections. “Rarely do we only visit one country,” she said of trips to Europe. “We want to create a destination where people enjoy all the cultures of all the GCC states and spend time and money equally.”

Turning that concept into a bookable product requires substantial coordination across the region’s tourism operators. Al Sairafi said aligned tourism calendars, better transport connections, and cooperation between airlines, hotels, and booking platforms would be needed to make cross-border trips easier to arrange. In practical terms, the campaign’s success depends less on advertising than on whether these service networks can function as a single, seamless offer for long-haul travelers.

Meanwhile, the conflict itself has reshaped how the region’s tourism authorities work together. Al Sairafi said the past few months have accelerated cooperation, turning the region’s shared exposure to disruption into an incentive to market destinations jointly. “I really believe that the recent developments that have happened over the past few months are one of the main drivers for us to actually combine our effort,” she said.

Gulf tourism leaders had been “very disheartened” by the Iranian attacks after years of expansion in the sector, she added, arguing that closer regional cooperation offered a way to rebuild.

Analysts caution that execution risks remain. The research agency ORF Middle East said support for tourism businesses and efforts to restart events could become harder to sustain if the conflict drags on. With increased tensions and potential renewed disruption, the joint promotion offers no guarantee of a return to previous tourism numbers. The gap between the campaign’s launch and the restoration of stable visitor flows is the central uncertainty for operators across the region.

Within Bahrain, officials point to early signs that delivery on the ground is resuming. Al Sairafi pointed to the kingdom’s international conference calendar as evidence that confidence was returning. Business visitors were extending their stays and booking guided tours, she said, bringing spending beyond the events themselves.

The broader track record underpins the case that the delivery capacity exists. According to the ministry, Bahrain’s visitor numbers increased more than 50% between the launch of its tourism strategy in 2022 and 2025, while tourism revenue rose more than 30%. Al Sairafi says recovery would mean renewed annual growth in arrivals, revenue and overnight stays.

Whether the joint campaign can translate coordination among six national tourism authorities into a functioning multi-destination product is the immediate test. The six governments have the approval, the plan and, according to Bahrain’s minister, a near-term launch date. What remains is the harder work of aligning calendars, transport links and commercial partners so that a traveler arriving in one Gulf state can move smoothly through the others.

“I believe the opportunity that we see outweighs the challenge,” Al Sairafi said.