Iranian Invasion: Karbala’s Hotel Owners Fighting for their Livelihood

Until 2009, Shamsa, which gets a bulk discount on room rates in Karbala, operated mainly inside Iran. However after an increase in clientele complaints about the quality of services inside Iraq, Shamsa has expanded into its neighbouring country. In 2009 the New York Times reported that almost all of Shamsa’s business partners in Iraq are “affiliated with Iraqi political parties close to Iran”. For example, Shamsa started to arrange private transportation for Iranian visitors to Karbala – they are guarded by private security firms whose employees were often past members of political organisations that had opposed Hussein and been forced to flee to Iran while he was in power; private security firms are needed because of the danger of attack from armed Sunni Muslim groups motivated by sectarian rivalry and the private security firms are licensed by Iraq’s Ministry of the Interior.

Shamsa also made a deal with the state authorities that they would open a number of kitchens to serve their Iranian visitors meals.

Earlier Karbala’s committee on religious tourism had called upon the Iraqi government to encourage Iranians to travel privately, rather than with a package tour. The committee believed that, “services provided by the [Shamsa] company to Iranian visitors should be limited to within the Iranian borders. The Iraqi side, represented by local tourism firms, should provide transportation and other services to visitors”.

“Shamsa has imposed unfair requirements and unfair methods on hotel owners who deal with the firm regularly,” hotel manager Haider, who preferred not to give his whole name because of commercial sensitivities, confirmed; his hotel in central Karbala frequently hosts Iranian visitors, as well as those coming from the Arab Gulf States on important Shiite Muslim religious occasions. Haider explained that the income his hotel earned from Iranian pilgrims in 2009 was hardly enough to cover the costs of hosting them. “The company [Shamsa] obliges us to offer Iranian visitors the best of services but what they pay doesn’t add up to more than US$20 per night, per visitor.”