Bahrain's hotel industry is booming, with revenues topping BD40 million ($106 million). Taxes levied on the revenues also rose to BD2 million for the first quarter of this year, Bahrain's Tourism Directorate said in a report.

It levies a fixed five per cent tax on hotel revenues. The country's five-star hotels earned BD28.15m, generating BD1.4m in taxes, the directorate report said on Friday.

Four-star hotels reported BD9 million in revenues, with taxes exceeding BD450,000.

The three-star and two-star hotels posted quarterly revenues of BD1.73m and BD1.82m respectively.

One-star hotels generated BD38,980, as compared to BD8,139 by non-star ones, according to the directorate.

The travel and tourism industry is expected to contribute up to BD445m this year, or 5.8pc of the GDP, which topped BD5.95bn in 2006.

The sector provides 7.7pc of the total jobs, Tourism Marketing and Promotion Project chief executive Mohammed Nass told our sister paper Akhbar Al Khaleej.

The industry has created 24,000 jobs to date, a recent global report by the World Tourism Organisation said. The industry may contribute about BD1.8 billion or up to 30pc of the nation's gross domestic product over the next decade, it added.-TradeArabia News Service