ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Region has long-term plans to boost tourism, but challenges include security, public perception about safety and training local staff for the hospitality industry, according to the Kurdistan Tourism Board (KTB).
“In our strategic planning for tourism we have taken into account all unexpected incidents,” said KTB spokesman Nadir Rostayi, adding that a deadly attack in Erbil last month had worried authorities about its impact on tourism.
“After the bombing we met in order to set into motion a way to get around it,” he said, referring to a September 29 attack on the headquarters of the Asayish security services in which all six attackers and seven guards were killed.
Authorities say that the incident – rare in Iraqi Kurdistan where the last such attack happened in 2007 – does not appear to have slowed tourism, particularly visitors from the rest of Iraq seeking a respite from the violence rocking many parts of the country nearly every day.
Rostayi said he is optimistic about the future of the region’s tourism industry, but cautioned that, “We are in the early stages of the tourism industry in Kurdistan. We need skilled staff; we have a master plan for tourism and we want to advance it step-by-step.”
Erbil has been selected as the Arab World Tourism Capital for 2014, for which Erbil is preparing, according to Rostayi.
“We have used the media to tell the world that Kurdistan is a safe place,” he said. “We just received 20 tourists and academics from the UK to tell them that Kurdistan is a safe place.”
Rostayi said that the government is funding training courses in hospitality in Arabic and Kurdish for hotel and restaurant staff.
Foreign workers are a visible feature in Kurdistan’s restaurants and hotels, and Rostayi said that was because most locals do not want to work in menial jobs.
“We want to solve the issue of many foreign laborers,” Rostayi said. “We would like local people to work in those places in order to keep the revenue generated from tourism.”
He said that the tourism sector in Kurdistan has provided around 6,000 jobs “which is a great burden off the government.”
Thanks to political stability and security the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq is also a favorite destination for thousands of Iranian tourists who come to attend music concerts of their favorite artists, who are not allowed to perform in the conservative Islamic Republic. Unlike Iran, in the Kurdistan Region there are no dress codes for women or restrictions on alcoholic drinks.
“Tourism in Kurdistan will be more organized, but also easy,” said Rostayi. “The (Erbil) governor has a staff now who work to make sure that in 2014 we will play up to our name.”
He said the Kurdish government is opening a tourism college and sending students abroad to study hospitality to later “come home and contribute to tourism.”
He added that the government also has “an agreement with a famous tourism institute in France to come and run Kurdistan’s tourism institute.”
“Our plans are more about the future and long term,” he said.
Comments
1 0 Baran | 10 hours ago
The best point is where he said: “We want to solve the issue of many foreign laborers,” Rostayi said. “We would like local people to work in those places in order to keep the revenue generated from tourism.”
