The Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB) recently revealed that investments in Bahrain’s tourism infrastructure have reached over $13 billion. The figure covers 14 prominent projects that will further boost growth in the Kingdom’s tourism and leisure sector. As part of these developments, Bahrain International Airport is undergoing a $1.1 billion worth expansion to increase passenger capacity to a yearly 14 million by 2020. This will go hand in hand with the new hotels, resorts, real-estate projects, malls, restaurants and other projects that will be implemented in the kingdom. Dr. Simon Galpin, Managing Director of EDB, said: "The tourism sector contributes 6.3 percent to the country’s GDP, and is set to grow significantly, as the number of visitors and leisure activities increase." He added: “The total number of tourists visiting Bahrain has reached 8.7 million during the first nine months of this year, a significant number considering our resident population of only 1.5 million people." The tourism infrastructure projects are part of Bahrain’s large-scale infrastructure development across a wide range of sectors and are valued at over $32 billion. This public-private sector investment consists of $10 billion of government funding, $7.5 billion under the GCC Development Fund, and $15 billion worth of investments in the private sector. The sector witnessed rapid growth in the past year, with the total number of tourists visiting the Kingdom increasing by 12.8 percent in the first nine months of 2017. Bahrain visitors spent during 2017 around $2.45 billion.