House to discuss penalties for flouting tourism rules

Manama : The House of Representatives on Tuesday will discuss and vote on a bill that toughens punishments for violations committed in the tourism sector by 10,000 per cent, DT News has learnt.

The House of Representatives in its weekly meeting will review the bill introduced by a number of MPs and vote on increasing fines for tourism-related violations from BD500 to BD50,000, in a bid to curb the repeated irregularities in the sector.

The bill was initially submitted by five MPs and aims to amend Law 15 of 1986 with regards to regulating tourism.

The legislators who introduced the proposed bill said it aims to enhance supervision on the Kingdom’s tourism sector.

The bill was referred to the Services Committee in the House of Representatives for studying and approval.

The committee recently approved the bill after discussing it with several official authorities such as Industry, Commerce and Tourism Ministry and Finance Ministry.

The rule violations mentioned in the law includes “any person who engages in the operation of tourist services without a license, violates the terms and conditions of the license, or makes use of any tourism site without a license or in violation of its terms”, in addition to “any breach of obligations towards customers, tourists or other tourism services owners, to harm the interests or reputation of the profession and  would prejudice the national tourism interest”.

The existing law instructs that such violations are punishable by imprisonment not exceeding three months and fines not exceeding BD500 or one of these two punishments.

The bill comes to increase the penalties for each of the mentioned violations to imprisonment not exceeding six months, and fines not less than BD10,000 and not exceeding BD50,000.

More discussion on the articles mentioned in the bill is scheduled to be held in the presence of government’s representatives on Tuesday’s session.

As reported on DT News earlier, Industry, Commerce and Tourism Ministry periodically announces disciplinary measures taken against violating tourism establishments in the Kingdom, such as restaurants, spas, nightclubs and lounges.

It is frequently published in the Official Gazette that the establishments violating tourism sector laws are either shut down, suspended or fined, in accordance with the gravity and repetition of the violations committed.