ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - More than 97 percent of tourist attractions, hotels, and restaurants across the Kurdistan Region are now using Kurdish language, three years after the government ordered them to do so, officials told Rudaw on Saturday.
"All the tourist attractions that have been registered in Erbil have committed to using Kurdish language in their business names, menus, regulations, and cashier receipts," said Nariman Fazel, who heads media office of Erbil's tourism department.
In August 2022, the Kurdistan Region’s General Board of Tourism issued an executive order ”requiring all hotels, motels, cafes, restaurants and tourist attractions to abide by using Kurdish as the main language for their menus and business name signs.”
A few months prior, marking International Mother Language Day in February, Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said the Kurdish language was not “addressed enough” in Iraq or the Kurdistan Region, despite being an official language.
Many restaurants, cafes, hotels, and motels in the Kurdistan Region were using Arabic or English instead of Kurdish.
Kizhan Abdulla, in charge of Sulaimani's tourism department, said that 98 percent of tourist attractions there have added the Kurdish language "because the order is mandatory and every place must abide by it."
Ninety-five percent of tourist attractions in Duhok and 99 percent in Halabja are now using the Kurdish language, relevant officials in the two provinces confirmed to Rudaw.
These businesses are also allowed to use foreign languages, but Kurdish should remain the main one.
"Any place that does not abide by the order, will have their licenses revoked, and if the place is newly established, they will not be granted a license to work,” said Fazel.
In addition to the language rule, the 2022 decree also said that 75 percent of people working in the tourism sector must be Kurdish nationals. That rule has been more difficult to abide by, according to the Erbil tourism department.
"We cannot impose that 75 percent of the people working in the sector must be domestic workers," said the department’s media officer.
