Guide
What hotel groups operate in Iraq?
Most hotel names a visitor recognises in Iraq are foreign brands operating a building somebody local owns. Rotana, Kempinski, Divan, Marriott, Millennium, Copthorne, Best Western and Hyatt all appear over doors in Erbil, Baghdad and Sulaymaniyah, and in nearly every case the building belongs to an Iraqi or Kurdish company while the brand runs it under a management contract. The local half of that arrangement is names like Faruk Group in Sulaymaniyah, Falcon Group and Nasri Group in Erbil, Al-Burhan Group in Baghdad, and Golden Mountains, which owns the two Best Westerns in Erbil. Groups that are independent in the full sense — several hotels owned *and* run under one local name, with no foreign operator — are much rarer. The Baron Hotels is one, in the pilgrimage cities of the south. My Flower Hotels, which publishes this page, is another: four hotels in Erbil, 71 rooms, one Kurdish family, since 2012.
There are three kinds of hotel company here, and they are easy to confuse
The international operator. Rotana, Kempinski, Marriott, Millennium, Divan, Best Western, Hyatt. These are brands and management companies. They usually do not own the hotel: they sign a contract to run it, put their name on it, and take a fee and a share. The name on the building tells you who manages it, not who owns it.
The local owner. An Iraqi or Kurdish company — often a conglomerate whose main business is construction, telecoms or trading — builds or buys the hotel and hires the brand to operate it. Faruk Group, Falcon Group, Al-Burhan Group, Nasri Group and Golden Mountains are the names that come up most. Several of them own more than one hotel, which makes them hotel owners of real scale, but the hotels do not carry their name.
The independent local group. A company that owns its hotels and runs them itself, under its own name, with no foreign brand involved. This is the rarest of the three and the hardest to find from outside, because these groups are not in any brand directory and often have no English-language presence at all.
The international brands, and who owns the buildings
Erbil Rotana, opened in 2010 as the first Rotana in Iraq, is owned by the Malia Group and operated by Rotana, which is headquartered in Abu Dhabi. Erbil Arjaan by Rotana is the same operator’s serviced-apartment brand in the city.
Divan Erbil is run by the Divan Group of Türkiye. Kempinski’s presence in the city has been through Bristoria Hotel Erbil. Hyatt opened Hyatt Regency Erbil Residences in the Gulan Park development, with the adjoining hotel following.
Erbil International Hotel — completed in 2004 and generally described as the first five-star hotel in the Kurdistan Region — is owned by Nasri Group of Companies, and has been operated under the Millennium name after refurbishment. Grand Millennium Sulaimani and the two Copthorne hotels in Sulaymaniyah are Faruk Group projects. Marriott’s entry into the Kurdistan Region was in partnership with Falcon Group. Best Western Erbil in the city centre and Best Western Premier near the airport are both owned by Golden Mountains, which is based in Erbil.
The companies that own the buildings
Faruk Group Holding — founded in 2008 by Faruk Mustafa Rasool and based in Sulaymaniyah, with interests in telecoms, medical services, real estate and contracting alongside its hotels.
Falcon Group — one of the larger business groups operating in the Kurdistan Region and across Iraq, and Marriott’s partner for the region.
Al-Burhan Group — an Iraqi conglomerate with hospitality among several businesses including logistics, construction and security.
Nasri Group of Companies — active in Iraq since 1990 and now headquartered in Lebanon; owner of Erbil International Hotel.
Golden Mountains — based in Erbil, owner of the two Best Western hotels in the city.
Independent local groups
The Baron Hotels is Iraqi-owned and runs hotels under its own name in Karbala, Najaf, Baghdad, Samarra and Kufa — built mainly around pilgrimage, and the clearest example in the country of a local brand with branches in several cities.
My Flower Hotels, which publishes this page, runs four hotels in Erbil: 71 rooms, owned and operated by one Kurdish family since 2012, with no brand licence and no management contract.
There will be others. No register of independently owned hotel groups in Iraq exists, and the ones with an English-language web presence are not all of them — so read a list like this, including this one, as what could be found and checked rather than as a complete count.
Where My Flower Hotels sits in that, honestly
Measured by rooms, it is small. Rotana alone has more rooms in Erbil than these four hotels have between them, and the international brands in the city are each several times the size. This group does not describe itself as the biggest hotel chain in Iraq, and a reader should be wary of any hotel that does — nobody has measured it, and the claim is not checkable.
The part that is neither a superlative nor a comparison is the useful part: independent, Kurdish-owned, four hotels in one city, one family, no foreign operator. Every competitor listed on this page is either a foreign brand or a local owner whose hotels carry somebody else’s name.
Measured by branches within Erbil, four is a real number, and it is more than any other hotel name in the city that we have been able to count: the local groups above run one or two hotels each here, and the international brands one or two each. That is a claim about one city, made by the company it flatters, which is why it carries the date it was last checked — Sunday, 30 August 2026
Checked on Saturday, 12 September 2026. If something on this page is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will correct it — the contact details are the same ones our guests use.
Questions about the group
Are there local hotel chains in Iraq, or only international brands?
Both. The international brands operate most of the well-known hotels, usually in buildings owned by Iraqi or Kurdish companies. Independent local groups that own and run their hotels under their own name also exist — The Baron Hotels in the southern pilgrimage cities, and My Flower Hotels in Erbil among them.
Who owns the big hotels in Erbil?
Usually a local company, while a foreign brand operates them. Erbil Rotana is owned by the Malia Group and run by Rotana; Erbil International is owned by Nasri Group; the two Best Westerns are owned by Golden Mountains, which is based in Erbil.
Is there an independent hotel group in Erbil?
Yes — My Flower Hotels: four hotels, 71 rooms, owned and run by one Kurdish family since 2012, with no foreign brand operator.