BARCELONA, Spain – With the Kurdistan Region promoted as a travelers’ destination and Erbil nominated the Arab Tourism Capital of 2014, anything that helps visitors explore the city’s attractions is much welcome.
Starting this week, visitors can find all the information they need about the Kurdish capital at one stop: www.discovererbil.com.
“Discover Erbil is a complete online travel guide that shows you in an informative way all the tourist attractions of Erbil,” said 27-year-old Benjad Kashefi, the Kurd behind the travel guide, which went online this week.
“Tourists can find here the best deals, the latest attractions, restaurants, shops, bars, cultural events and much more,” Kashefi told Rudaw.
The website goes online as the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) focuses on drawing more tourists. It envisages luring an ambitious seven million visitors, according to a strategic plan for 2013-2025, with earnings of $2.17 billion in tourism revenues.
The number of tourists visiting the Kurdistan Region has already risen by 30 percent and among them are more Europeans and Americans, according to data from the Kurdistan Board of Tourism. But for now, the Westerners traveling to Kurdistan are only those with a sense of adventure, and the rest come from other parts of Iraq and from neighboring Iran.
“After a visit to Erbil I was absolutely in love with the city,” said Kashefi, explaining why he created discovererbil.com.
“It had everything that a modern city is supposed to have. After I visited the luxurious restaurants, hotels and shopping malls I came to a conclusion: It is missing tourism,” said the developer, who lives in the Netherlands but originally comes from Urumiyeh, in Iranian Kurdistan.
“The first time that I ever visited Erbil was in 2012. I was really happy to see what my people had achieved and how beautiful the city was, with the combination of ancient architecture mixed with all the gadgetry of modernity,” added Kashefi, a designer and Internet developer who enjoys creating visuals and web designs.
“I was really impressed. Erbil was developing so fast. Everywhere you looked you saw constructions being done. The most amazing thing was to see Kurds being free and see our beautiful flag waving everywhere. I felt immediately at home. But the big problem for me was that I didn’t know what I could do or explore in Erbil, because there was no travel guide,” he said.
Now, visitors will more easily find the Kurdish capital’s archeological gem, which lies in the heart of the city: The Erbil Citadel. It is recognized as the world’s longest continuously-inhabited city, dating back some 8,000 years. Efforts are underway to have it included in UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites. In addition, Kurdistan has a rich heritage of 3,000 known archaeological sites.
And alongside the ancient city, is rising a new one.
Last October, the KRG kicked off the nearly $3 billion “Downtown Erbil” project, which is set to transform the Kurdish capital with five-star hotels, apartment towers, shopping malls, schools and healthcare facilities.
The project is led by Dubai-based Emaar Properties, which hopes to finish it in five years.
The same steam that put Dubai on the map is now at work in Erbil, say many observers, including Kashefi.
“It is the fastest growing region in Iraq and some say that it is the next Dubai. If you saw Dubai 20 years ago you wouldn’t think that the Dubai of now was like that. This is right now happening in Erbil.”
Kashefi said that his online travel guide offers businesses a place to promote their companies online. “This is a good thing for the companies who are located in Erbil.”
For the time being Discover Erbil is only in English, but in the near future Kashefi expects to include Kurdish and Arabic. If things go as well as he hopes, he also wants to develop a phone app.
This year is definitely the year of Erbil.
Highlighting the citadel, a landscape of mountains and authentic Kurdish dishes, the prestigious Washington-based National Geographic Traveler magazine has named the city one of its “Best in the World” destinations for 2014, promising it will make visitors forget everything they have heard about Iraq.
Kurdistan remains an anomaly for its security, stability and economic boom, as the rest of Iraq writhes in an unending cycle of violence and devastation.
