By Jamal Jamil
SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region – Sulaimani province in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Region is growing as a travel destination but needs to develop tourist sites, services and facilities in order to attract visitors in yet larger numbers, officials say.
“We have a strategic plan to renovate tourism areas with the aim of further expanding the tourism sector in Sulaimani,” said Yasin Faqe Saeed, director of the city’s official tourism department.
“The plan includes several tourism projects and can be implemented within five years if budget funding is guaranteed by the government,” he added, explaining that the city is waiting for government approval for about a dozen proposed tourism projects, which will cost around $11 million in all.
The main objective of that plan is to create more tourism destinations in Sulaimani province, Saeed said.
According to official data, last year 54,000 visitors spent their holidays in Sulaimani province, but that figure more than doubled only during the first five months of this year, indicating a steep rise in the number of visitors.
Officials say that around 80 percent of current visitors, who are mainly from other parts of Kurdistan or Iraq, head to the Hawraman and Doukan areas.
Unlike the rest of Iraq which is still staggering under bombings and insurgent attacks the Kurdistan Region, which gained autonomy following the 2003 US-led invasion that ousted dictator Saddam Hussein, remains an oasis of relative peace and oil-fueled prosperity.
So far, there is only one five-star hotel in Sulaimani city, but Saeed said that seven internationally-known hotel groups have expressed strong interest in opening branches in the city.
The private sector also is involved in enhancing the city’s tourism capacity, investing in projects like Chavi Land, a giant amusement park in Sulaimani that opened recently and is expected to pull in visitors from the region and beyond.
“Chavi Land is one of the greatest tourism projects in the Kurdistan Region and one of the nicest in the Middle East,” Saeed noted.
In order to inject more vigor into the tourism sector, the High Economic Council of Kurdistan has decided to separate the tourism departments from municipalities, enact a tourism law and allocate a special budget for the sector.
Safety, and the Kurdistan Region’s unspoilt natural beauty, are the main reasons for the growing number of visitors. Sulaimani also boasts a reputation as Kurdistan’s cultural capital.
