Nearly 140,000 tourists visited Sulaimani in nine days: Directorate

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Sulaimani's Tourism Directorate revealed on Saturday that well over a hundred thousand tourists visited the province in nine days during Eid al-Fitr, a substantial increase from last year.

“The total number of tourists who visited Sulaimani Province from June 12 until June 21 is 139,721 people,” Ali Rauf, Sulaimani Tourism Director, told reporters during a press conference.

Sulaimani is one of the provinces that receive a considerable number of visitors every year due to its scenic destinations and its lower temperatures in comparison to other parts of the Kurdistan Region and Iraq.

Eid al-Fitr, occurring at the close of the Ramadan month of fasting, is one of the most famous occasions for which tourists fly to the Kurdistan Region to spend their vacations.

Rauf mentioned that, compared to 2017 when 96,936 tourists visited during Eid al-Fitr, this year's numbers show a 40 percent increase.

The Kurdish official noted that 85 percent of them came from the middle and southern provinces of Iraq.

Regarding Iranian tourists, Rauf stated that 7,000 visited Sulaimani during the holiday. Their number has substantially decreased compared to previous years, seen as a result of a new fee imposed by Iranian authorities for those crossing the border to the Kurdistan Region.

Similar to Sulaimani, other provinces in the Kurdistan Region are a hub for Iraqi tourists, but their officials have yet to announce the statistics.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has, over the past few years, actively developed the tourism sector in the semi-autonomous region as a source of revenue, rather than relying entirely on revenue generated by exporting crude oil abroad.

Editing by John J. Catherine