Erbil hosts first edition of HOSPEX hospitality trade exhibition
Summary: Erbil hosted the first edition of HOSPEX, a hospitality supply trade exhibition, from October 14 to 17. Some 140 exhibitors attended, 90 of them international companies from 10 countries, and senior Kurdistan Regional Government officials opened the event.
Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region, hosted the first edition of HOSPEX, a trade exhibition dedicated to equipment and supplies for hotels, restaurants and the wider hospitality industry, at the Erbil International Fairground from October 14 to 17.
The four-day event brought together some 140 exhibitors, 90 of them international companies from 10 countries and 50 of them local firms, according to Kurdistan24, the exhibition’s media sponsor. HOSPEX is Iraq’s first international hospitality exhibition and a business-to-business marketplace connecting international suppliers with hotel and restaurant operators across Erbil, Sulaymaniyah and Duhok.
The show covered commercial kitchen and foodservice equipment, hotel interiors, fit-out and furniture, tableware and buffetware, food and beverage, hospitality technology including property management and point-of-sale systems, housekeeping and facility maintenance, and spa and guest amenities. The organizer’s program was built around matchmaking between exhibitors and local procurement managers, alongside seminars and live product demonstrations.
The opening ceremony on October 14 was attended by Dr. Mohammed Shukri, Chairman of the Kurdistan Region’s Board of Investment, Omed Khoshnaw, Governor of Erbil, and Sarwar Hawari, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, according to the Erbil Governorate, which placed the event within the government’s designation of tourism as a core pillar of its strategy to diversify revenue sources.
The demand the exhibition targets has grown quickly. Erbil alone received 3.4 million tourists between January 1 and December 1, 2025, according to tourism authority figures cited by Khoshnaw, while the Kurdistan Region’s tourism board recorded around 8 million visitors across the Region in 2024, up from 7 million the year before. The board puts the Region’s overnight capacity at 100,000 visitors, and each new hotel, restaurant and resort added to that total has to be equipped and furnished. Until now, operators have had no dedicated venue in the Kurdistan Region for sourcing that equipment. Whether HOSPEX becomes an annual fixture will be a measure of how far that sourcing demand has grown beyond what general trade fairs could serve.
