Holidaying In Iraq
This may not be your first choice of destinations and, we have to confess, that we have never covered Iraq before in CD-traveller (except about the loss of items from the Iraqi National Museum) but the time has come. What has sparked this interest is that Iraq exhibited for the first time in a decade at World Travel Market. Even the BBC picked this up and ran a story about it on “Breakfast” this morning.
In reality, the Iraqis are not expecting an influx of tourists from day one. It takes time to build these things up. For a start it needs to be easy to get to and a lack of flights will be an issue. But you can get there via Sweden and in June, 150 passengers flew in on a charter flight. KLM-Air France plan to start flights at some stage as well.
Those people who will go will initially be the intrepid. There are people who visit Afghanistan and who are not put off by the inconvenience that conflict brings. And there will be those visiting friends and relatives
But there will need to be more hotels and escorted tours and these will come. But by starting now, the development of tourism can begin. The importance is that tourism brings money. The Maldives for example have 70% of their economy based on tourism and the sooner Iraq can generate some tourism cash the better for Iraq as a whole
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