Bahrain's commerce and tourism minister lauded the "global" impact of his Israel visit, Thursday.
"We're not in this for the short term. We're ready to make it a long-lasting growing agreement," Zayed bin Rashid Al Zayani said.
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"I think what fascinated us most looking at Israel is how quickly the economy grew here and how the GDP grew and how it's primarily driven by innovation and technology. We'd like to learn more from the Israeli private sector," he told i24NEWS.
Al-Zayani, who also serves as the chairman of Bahrain's national carrier Gulf Air, said the company received many inquiries into a "direct route" between Manama and Tel Aviv. Travel agents, he said, wanted to know "how they can set up, how they can promote Bahrain."
Al-Zayani and Tourism Minister Orit Farkash-Hacohen signed a historic Memorandum of Understanding at a ceremony in Jerusalem on Wednesday.
According to Farkash-Hacohen, the MoU provides the framework to turn ideas into plans into packages.
"Together, we can create packages for regional tourism, offering tourists from Brazil, China, Australia, or the Philippines to visit both our countries," she said.
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At the ceremony, al-Zayani said that he and his 40-member delegation, which arrived in Israel on Tuesday, were returning to Bahrain "with lots of hope and ambition that we will forge the peace signed by our leadership, so it transmits to every Israeli and every Bahraini citizen."
"The big stuff will come," he said, "and it will come big once it arrives."
"What we do now has to be done right because we're setting a template for others to follow," he said.
i24NEWS contributed to this report.
