ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A growing number of tourists visiting the Kurdistan Region are coming from beyond Iraq’s borders, an official from the tourism board said on Saturday.
"We have made every effort to increase the number of tourists coming from outside Iraq to the Kurdistan Region. We have succeeded, as a few years ago only 15 percent of tourists were from outside, but now the ratio has risen to 25 percent,” Ibrahim Abdulmajeed, head of media relations at the Kurdistan Region’s tourism board, told Rudaw.
According to data from the tourism board, some eight million tourists visited the Kurdistan Region in 2023. Most of the holidaymakers come from southern and central provinces of Iraq.
Of the foreign visitors, the majority come from Iran, according to Abdulmajeed. There are 150 tour companies bringing people from Iran to the Region.
Since the start of 2024, around 1.7 million tourists have visited the Region, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) revealed late last month, without providing details of where the visitors hailed from.
With its relatively moderate temperature compared to the rest of Iraq and its beautiful nature, the Kurdistan Region’s tourism sector has been booming.
The KRG plans to attract 20 million tourists annually by 2030.
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