Some of the tourism investment projects announced by #Kurdistan is worrying, do we really need another hotel in Bekhal? Sustainable tourism should be priority and gov shouldn't release these projects without feasibility & sustainability study by established companies. #myrant

In the past, such a tender was announced to create the road-map and the future of tourism in #Kurdistan - the bidding was a disaster. The same Lebanese that won all tenders won the bid, delivered a terrible tourist guide mobile app and some marketing jippo events.

In the same bidding, there was a UK & USA company that had a proven record of implementing national-level tourism road-maps with focus on sustainable tourism. Their proposal for the tender was 400 pages with professional studies by well-experienced people.

The committee for awarding the tender, consisted of 5 people whom could barely comprehend the concept of sustainability - probably never visited outside of Turkey & Dubai. No consideration was given to participants expertis & proven records.

Instead the "lowest bid" won, it was easy to understand that awarding a tender to company with PROVEN BAD record because of lowest bid meant the whole process was questionable.

We don't need more concrete hotels, or build 20 more disgusting mini-markets and "cafes" blocking the view of our landmarks. Look at #Shaqlawa, it has turned into a concrete industrial area with minimum local food production, trees cut off, a dried out river.

End of my daily rant.