Looking to the future: Iraq sends a rep to World Travel Market
November 13th, 2009 at 05:49pm Under Exotic locations+ travel news
The World Travel Market is a week-long premier event for the tourism industry as a whole, where there are many stands extolling the virtues of destinations around the world, as well as travel operators.
The World Tourism Awards are also announced each year. This year the three winners are Tourism Cares, Gap Adventures and Cyrene in Libya, all of whom are commended for their commitment to sustainable tourism and preservation of the cultural heritage.
Iraq’s representative at WTM, Mr Hammoud al-Yaqoubi, the chairman of the Iraq tourism board, says he does not expect a flood of tourists next year, but said, “We want to prove that Iraq still exists and maybe we can change people’s minds about it,” adding that he sees tourism as a way to regenerate Iraq.
In the 1970s, before the first Gulf War, Iraq was a popular exotic tourist destination, and even today, there are specialist travel operators who offer Iraq tours, even though the Foreign Office is advising against traveling to Iraq for the time being.
Inside Iraq are many names familiar from bible study: Ur, Babylon and the Garden of Eden are all to be found, as well as Samarra (from “Appointment in Samarra”) and many other beautiful places which have survived decades of war. It will be a huge step forward when tourism finally returns to Iraq, and I hope that day is not too far in the future.
Lots more interesting pictures of Iraqi landmarks are to be found in the article by BBC News.
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