/ 24 September 2008

Iraq unveils plans to revive honeymoon island

Iraq unveiled plans last weekend for a multibillion-dollar resort with spas, golf courses and a six-star hotel to revive a once-popular honeymoon island on the Tigris River in Baghdad.

Tourist board chief Hamud al-Yakuby said the organisation wanted to secure between $1-billion and $3-billion for the new development on al-A’arass Island in the heart of the capital.

“In the 1980s al-A’arass island was a popular destination for weddings and honeymoon couples,” Yakuby told reporters. “This has a great potential to be developed as a major tourist attraction in Baghdad.

“We want the investors to ensure that they incorporate the old traditional style [from the Ottoman-empire era] in putting up new facilities on the island,” he added.

Security in the capital is improving and the authorities expect the 2,14km-long island, whose name means “wedding”, to be fully developed within five years as a major resort, Yakuby said.

Although Baghdad’s six million residents are still at risk of roadside bomb blasts and shootings on a daily basis, the tourism supremo said he expects local and foreign tourists to start flocking to the city.

The potato wedge-shaped island overlooks Baghdad’s Green Zone, the highly fortified area where the United States embassy and most Iraqi government offices are situated, and Yakuby said he believed the location will ensure a steady flow of foreigners.

Al-A’arass is still popular with Baghdad residents who flock there, paying an entrance fee of 500 dinars (about 40 US cents) to sit by the river.

“There is no accommodation on the island now,” its manager, Faiq Ahmed, told an Agence France-Presse correspondent who visited the island. “But a lot of people still come here and we hope we can add a few more recreation centres for them.”

Ahmed, sitting in front of a large poster of Singapore’s waterfront where luxury yachts are berthed, said he is unaware of the plans unfolding to turn his island into a mega attraction.

Concrete blocks along the perimeter wall are painted, red, blue, green and yellow with fading drawings of Mickey Mouse, Tom and Jerry, Tweety Pie andWinnie the Pooh. Guns are not allowed into the tightly guarded island because of its proximity to the Green Zone.

‘Iraq is open for investment’
A five-star hotel is already planned for the Green Zone, after the government in July cleared a proposed $100-million project.

The 300-room hotel will be built near executed dictator Saddam Hussein’s former Adnan Palace in the heavily fortified zone.

No international hotel chains operate in Iraq, which has been off limits to mass tourism for many years as the country was under United Nations sanctions for much of the 1990s, continuing until the US-led invasion in March 2003.

Ahmed Ridha, head of Iraq’s National Investment Commission, said $1-billion for the island development was not too ambitious in the war-torn nation, considering the amount of money coming in to the country.

“We got $74-billion in direct foreign investment in the past six months,” Ridha said. “Iraq is now open for investment.”

He said he expects tourism to overtake oil as the main source of revenue for Iraq, which receives more than 93% of its revenue from the petroleum industry.

“We want to put oil in the second place and tourism as the first source of revenue for people in Iraq. We have two great rivers, deserts, marshes and more than 10 000 historic sites,” Ridha said.

He said Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the US are among the nations investing in massive infrastructure projects in Iraq, where US troops have been deployed since the invasion.

Ridha said much of the $74-billion will go towards financing port development in the southern oil city of Basra, rebuilding Baghdad’s rundown international airport, reviving the central holy Shi’ite city of Najaf and building a new city in Kut. — AFP