Kurdistan plans to invest millions on roads and infrastructure to lure tourists

“We have 10-year-plans for our tourism sector, including a master plan for the roads, which are hugely important for the growth of tourism in any country,” said Nawroz Mawlood, the Kurdish minister of municipalities and tourism.

“Our plan is to make tourism the second source of revenue in Kurdistan after oil exports,” she told Rudaw.

The minister said authorities will work together to facilitate the entry of Iraqi visitors, which has been severely curtailed since the war with the Islamic State (ISIS) began in 2014.

Stricter regulations at Kurdistan checkpoints for security reasons  has cut into the number of holidaymakers coming to Kurdistan. But now, she said, Kurdistan wants to win back the visitors, even if it takes a decade.

Only months before ISIS’ advance across northern Iraq, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) was planning to invest nearly $1 billion in building hotels and embracing 4 million tourists annually, mainly from Iraq but also from other regional countries.

Instead, the sudden and swift spread of bands of jihadi militants across Kurdish borders turned the tide against tourism, as the number of vacationers dropped dramatically and millions of refugees took shelter in unfinished buildings in Kurdistan.

“The KRG has to allocate a special budget for the tourist sector, even in rough times like now,” said Dr. Azad Shokor, a tourism expert. “And then there should be continuous research about what could be further developed,” he said.

Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani has said that a severe economic crisis in Kurdistan is pushing the KRG to seek alternative sources of revenue, as some 90 percent of government earnings come solely from oil sales.

The government, in coordination with UNESCO, has spent large sums on restoring the ancient Citadel in Erbil – the star attraction for tourists around the world -- hoping it could be a rewarding project.

The entire population of the Citadel was provided accommodation elsewhere in Erbil, evacuated from what is believed to be the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, for the renovations.

But with rebuilding completed, the KRG plans to select 50 families to continue to live in the Citadel, so that there is no break in its reputation as the world’s oldest inhabited locale.