ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Kurdistan Region’s tourism board said on Wednesday it will punish all those tourism attractions, hotels, and restaurants which do not treat Kurdish as the main language of their menus and business names.
Kurdistan Region’s General Board of Tourism said in a statement on Wednesday that the board has issued “an executive order, ”requiring all hotels, motels, cafes, restaurants and tourist attractions to abide by using Kurdish as the main language for their menu and business name signs.”
“Only 15 days have been set for the implementation of the decision,” added the board.
If a business fails to abide by the directive, it will be closed for three days. The business will be closed for a week if the violation is repeated. “The penalty also includes revoking the tourist license in case a tourist facility rejects to abide by the decree.”
These businesses are allowed to use foreign languages in their menus but Kurdish should remain the main one.
Many restaurants, cafes, hotels, and motels in the Kurdistan Region only have Arabic or English menus and the names of some of these businesses are not Kurdish. Some even refuse to play Kurdish music. In a statement to celebrate International Mother Language Day on February 21, Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said that Kurdish language has not received enough attention in the Region despite being its official language.
“If valuing this day is important for other nations, it must be a priority for the people of Kurdistan, for whom our mother language has been a key factor in our survival alongside our years of struggle and sacrifice,” he noted.
Millions of tourists from Iraqi central and southern provinces come to the Kurdistan Region annually. Over three million tourists visited the Region only in the first half of this year, according to official figures.
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