The holy Shiite city of Najaf in central Iraq, home to the shrine of a revered cleric, is in the midst of a hotel building boom in a bid to dramatically ramp up the number of visiting pilgrims.
While thousands of religious tourists already pass through Najaf every day on what are marketed as nine-day tours of Iraq’s holy Shiite sites, hoteliers and business groups in the city expect hotel capacity, currently at breaking point, to double in the next three years.
“Even if we multiplied the number of hotels in Najaf by 10 times, it would not be enough,” said Farhan Shibli, who already owns two hotels in the city and is building another.
“It is a great opportunity for investors, a golden chance — these two cities, Najaf and Karbala, are ripe for investment in hotels,” he added, referring to another holy Shiite shrine city close to Najaf.
The chamber of commerce in Najaf, about 150km south of Baghdad, estimates about 3,500 pilgrims arrive every day in the city of just 500,000 inhabitants, the vast majority of them from neighboring Iran.
The tourists are mostly on package tours where they spend three days in Najaf principally to visit the shrine of Imam Ali, a seventh century Muslim leader, and three days in Karbala and Baghdad respectively.
Karbala is the home to shrines to Imam Hussein and Imam Abbas, also revered among Shiites, while Baghdad houses a mausoleum to another such cleric, Imam Kadhim.
The tour groups typically also make a day trip to Samarra, north of the capital, to visit the gold-domed Askari shrine there.
However, Najaf’s 130 or so registered hotels are barely able to deal with the influx, to the point where 40-odd sub-standard establishments take in pilgrims, according to the chamber of commerce.
“How many tourists come to Najaf depends on hotel capacity,” said Zuheir Sharba, chairman of the chamber of commerce. “If there are more rooms, more people will come. The problem is there is no additional capacity right now.”
“Lots of hotels have rooms with four or five beds, but pilgrims who come don’t seem to care. They just want a place to sleep for the night,” he said.
Shibli concurs, noting that religious tourists will pay money just to sleep in his hotels’ lobbies, while others will cram several people into individual rooms.
As a result, the Najaf provincial council began giving out permits for new hotel construction two years ago and hotel capacity is expected to double in the next three years.
Among the new buildings will be about 10 four-star complexes, though the provincial council, in a nod to local religious sensitivities, has barred any of them from having a bar or a swimming pool.
At the moment, Najaf has just one four-star hotel, the Qasr Dur, around the corner from the Imam Ali shrine. Its manager welcomed the upcoming competition and said it would be better for his business.
“As more four-star and five-star hotels come to Najaf, if anything, our prices could go up,” said Salman al-Khatat, arguing that more up-market hotels would help build a bigger customer base. “At the moment, many, many people don’t even come to Najaf because there are no four-star or five-star hotels.”
Prices at the Qasr Dur start at US$115 a night for a double room, and rise to US$250 each night for a suite. By contrast, Shibli’s Dhulfiqar hotel charges US$70 per night.
Most of Shibli’s business, however, comes in the form of long-term deals with Iranian tour groups — of his 60 rooms, 50 are contracted out at a rate of US$28 per bed per night.
Sharba estimated that at least 80 of Najaf’s 130 hotels have similar arrangements.
Tourism directly and indirectly accounts for about 70 percent of all employment in Najaf, he said.
Whereas in 2001, fewer than 300,000 tourists visited Iraq, that number increased to 1.52 million last year, according to Iraqi Tourism Ministry spokesman Abdul Zahra al-Talakani.
Talakani said the ministry expects that figure to rise as much as 30 percent this year.
“It’s the main source of income for Najaf and Karbala, and jobs in hotels, restaurants, tourist transport, all of this has improved the economic situation in those cities, as well as surrounding towns and villages,” he said.
“Religious tourism to Najaf and Karbala forms the backbone of all tourism in this country,” Talakani said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese