Hotel Construction Explodes In Erbil To Keep Up With Tourism
Having enjoyed relative stability since Saddam Hussein's fall in 2003, Iraqi Kurdistan region capital Erbil is growing rapidly as it becomes more attractive to tourists and foreign investors.
Taxi drivers in Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq, are keen to tell every non-Kurdish person they give a ride to that there are more hotels in their city than in Paris. The drivers proudly list hotels’ names and the services they provide.
Erbil is the fourth-largest city in Iraq, after Baghdad, Basra and Mosul, and is nearly 360 km (224 miles) from the capital. Its population: 1 million. Erbil province is bordered by Turkey to the north and Iran to the east; its total area is 15,074 square km (5,820 square miles).
It is widely rumored that Erbil is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world.
The media and public relations director at Erbil’s governor’s office, Hamza Hamed, said the issue is not about competing with Paris in the number of hotels, but rather in the city’s plan to accommodate the huge number of visitors who come in the summer.
