ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - With popular Arab tourist destinations like Egypt and Syria in turmoil, Iraq’s Kurdistan Region can offer an alternative to tens of thousands of tourists every year.
That was one of the messages at the Kurdistan Hotel and Tourism Summit, held in Erbil on Sunday.
The conference, the first of its kind in Kurdistan, was organised by a Dubai-based firm and attended by representatives of major international hotel chains, airlines and foreign investment and consultancy firms, as well as the Kurdish authorities.
Erbil was named the 2014 Tourism Capital of the Middle East last year, and the conference was part of the Kurdistan Regional Government’s efforts to prepare for visitors.
Dubai profited highly from tourists who could not travel to the countries of the Arab Spring, the conference was told. Last year, the Gulf state welcomed around 10 million visitors, many of whom used to go to Egypt. The same could become true for Kurdistan, with the right investments, policies and promotion.
Geoffrey Breeze, of the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), portrayed the tourism industry as a growth market, worth nine percent of GDP. Globally, one out of every 11 jobs is connected to tourism. In 2023, those figures will rise to 10 per cent of GPD, and account for one out of every 10 jobs.
Breeze praised Iraqi Kurdistan’s tourism growth prediction as the best for the region. The figures the Kurdish Board of Tourism presented show indeed a big leap forward. Between 2007 and 2012, the number of tourist beds in Kurdistan rose from just over 10,000 to nearly 42,000 – more than a fourfold increase.
During the same period, the number of visitors shot up from below 400,000 to more than two million. In 2015, Kurdistan plans to receive twice that number of tourists, expected to create some 25,000 jobs and earn $1.5 billion in revenues.
Although tourism is on a growth trajectory in Kurdistan, the region has a long way to go to rival the Middle East’s top destinations: Egypt attracts about 11 million visitors a year, and Dubai 10 million.
A number of conference speakers noted that most of the visitors – around 60 percent – come to Kurdistan for business, and that only six percent come for leisure, since tourism still remains largely undeveloped.
For Erbil’s Rotana Hotel, one of the first five-star properties in Kurdistan, this remains a problem: The hotel is full only four days a week, but not on or near weekends. “That is like a resort that only works eight months a year,” said Rotana president Selim El Zyr. He called this a major weakness that needs to be resolved.
Other speakers also stressed the importance of attracting more leisure visitors, and that a government policy is needed to achieve this. Europeans would love to come to Kurdistan, was the message, and they have to be stimulated to come for fun instead of business.
Visa restrictions can also hamper the growth of the tourist market. Whereas Europeans and US citizens obtain free entry visas at Kurdistan airports, most Arab travellers do not. Yet, the leisure industry from the Gulf is enormous, some speakers noted.
“I can see the problem of an Arab family wanting to come to Kurdistan. The husband may be on business and get a visa, but the wife and children who want to go shopping will not,” said Doaa Amin, general manager of the Tangram Hotel in Erbil.
The hotel industry called on KRG authorities for more and better statistics, to be able to balance demand with supply. That is important, because a number of international hotel chains are planning or building hotels in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Sheraton Hotels and Resorts presented its plans for four- and five-star hotels in Erbil, Millennium is running a five-star property in Suleimani and building two more, Hilton is planning hotels in Erbil, and Rotana has hotels “in the pipeline” in Suleimani and Erbil.
“For the newcomers on the market it is important to know whether those four million visitors are realistic as they are basing their investment on them,” explained El Zyr, Rotana’s president.
The growth in visitors to Kurdistan was best illustrated by Majid al-Mualla, Senior Vice President for Dubai-based Emirates Airline. “After we started (flights) in August, it took us only two weeks to break even,” he told the conference. He said that the growth rate of 240 percent on the Dubai-Erbil route was “unique.”
“We now have an annual flow of 105,000 passengers, which will be 2.1 million in 10 years and 4.5 million in 20 years,” al-Mualla projected. He expects passenger traffic to Erbil to increase in 2013 by 30 percent, the biggest growth in the region.
He said that Emirates’ six weekly flights to Erbil will shortly become daily, and soon after even twice-daily. Al-Mualla said the company also would like to start flights to Suleimani, but that its planes were too large for the runway at the airport. He called on authorities to extend the runway, stressing the potential of Kurdistan’s second-largest city.
