The Bahrain Tourism and Exhibitions Authority (BTEA) has announced that a new hospitality management college is set to open in October.

"Vatel” aims to train the national workforce in the hospitality sector as well as provide them with a wide array of exciting career opportunities.

The announcement was made during a meeting held yesterday which discusses key achievements of its representative offices launched back in 2017.

The meeting, headed by the chief executive officer of BTEA, Shaikh Khaled bin Humood Al Khalifa, was held in the presence of the director of marketing and tourism promotion at BTEA, Yousef Al Khan and advisor at the BTEA, Jesus Florido-Banqueri, at Wyndham Grand Manama Hotel in Bahrain Bay.

During the session, the BTEA also revealed that the Saudi office witnessed a significant increase in the number of tour operators that promote Bahrain as a destination, which went up from 48 to 150 agencies. The office has also doubled the number of travel packages promoting the kingdom, from 200 to 400. Similarly, the Russian office also witnessed an increase in the number of tour operators that promote Bahrain, from 20 to 50 agencies, and the number of tourist packages increased significantly from 45 to 1,400 packages.

The representative office located in the UK witnessed an increase in the number of travel agencies promoting Bahrain, from 7 to 49 agencies while the number of tourist packages significantly increased from 13 to 568 packages in one year.

Additionally, the office in the UK has partnered with Levison Wood, who will be featuring Bahrain as part of his documentary series "Arabian Journey", which has received more than 2.6 million views. This is in addition to the “John Torode's Middle East” show, hosted by the Australian celebrity chef John Torode, which will highlight Bahrain's culture and history and is expected to attract 4.9 million viewers in the UK.

“The tourism sector in the kingdom continues to witness a remarkable progress and growth following BTEA’s inauguration of seven representative offices around the world. These offices work to promote the kingdom’s tourism sector by coordinating with several tour operators to increase inbound tourism, further positioning Bahrain as an ideal tourist destination. BTEA’s strategy focuses on developing the Kingdom’s tourism sector and shifting this vibrant sector to be one of the main contributors to the national economy and the kingdom’s 2030 Economic Vision,” said Shaikh Khaled.

The meeting was attended by a number of dignitaries including representatives of the embassies of Germany, UK, France, India, Saudi Arabia and Russia, in addition to hotel managers and representatives from destination management companies and travel agencies. - TradeArabia News Service