SULAIMANI (ESTA) — More than four million tourists visited the Kurdistan Region in 2021, the tourism board said on Saturday.
The General Board of Tourism in the Kurdistan Region said the rate of tourist visits to the Kurdistan Region had been rising year by year, except for 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“The highest rate of tourist arrivals was recorded in 2021,” the board said in a statement.
“Arrival of tourists has increased by 525% compared to the last seven years,” it added.
The tourism industry is reviving in the Kurdistan Region after a year of hardship due to coronavirus pandemic. In 2020, the Region’s revenue from tourism dropped by 75 percent due to measures taken against the virus outbreak.
Over the past two decades, the Kurdistan Region’s economy had been heavily reliant on the oil and gas sector, which has driven the Region’s development.
Kurdish authorities have been trying to diversify but the collapse of world oil prices had dealt a heavy blow.
