SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region - Over 30,000 tourists from central and southern Iraq spent their Eid holidays in the Kurdistan Region to enjoy the spring weather and a change in scenery.
Issam Mohammed, an Iraqi tourist, expressed his affection for the tourist areas in the Kurdistan Region that he is visiting for the “first time.”
“We came with the family to the Kurdistan Region, which is a beautiful area that we had not visited before and this is our first time. We visited other tourist areas in Turkey and elsewhere, but we did not expect this beauty in the Kurdistan Region,” Mohammed told Rudaw’s Ziyad Ismael on Friday.
Mahdi Saleh, another tourist from Baghdad told Rudaw that the “atmosphere in the Kurdistan Region is beautiful, more beautiful than Baghdad having waterfalls, and mountains.”
Tourists want to visit the region because of its beautiful mountains, plains, and valleys. In Baghdad, there are 1,200 tourism companies, and they see holidays and summer vacations as the best time for their business.
The head of the tourism and hotel service association, Ammar Yassir, spoke to Rudaw that “Tourism in the Kurdistan Region is promising and active, and a very good tourist market. This indicates the correct tourism work in the region and the development of a correct strategic plan in which the tourism authority operates.”
Yassir added, “On the other hand, there is tourism cooperation between the tourism authority in the Region and the tourism authority in Baghdad."
The Kurdish official highlighted that the improved security situation has encouraged tourism. Checkpoints in the Kurdistan Region have been streamlined to facilitate tourism, and since February last year, electronic visas have been introduced for foreign tourists, he detailed.
Based on data from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) tourism board, the past year witnessed over six million tourists.
With its relatively moderate temperature in comparison to the rest of the country and its tremendous nature, the Kurdistan Region’s tourism has been a booming sector in recent years.
The KRG plans to attract 20 million tourists per year by 2030.