7m tourists to Iran by year end

According to Ali-Asghar Mounesan, head of Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organisation (CHHTO), international arrivals in the country will reach 7m by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2019). He said the number of inbound passengers showed 51% year-on-year growth during the first six months of the year. Most come from Azerbaijan, Iraq, Afghanistan and Turkey, rather than Europe.

In an article in the Tehran Times, Ali-Asghar Mounesan says the growth has come from pilgrims and visitors from Iran’s neighboring countries, not by Western nationals.

The CHHTO in July announced that visitors from Azerbaijan, Iraq, Afghanistan and Turkey constituted topmost arrivals in the first three months of the current year, adding: “Inbound passengers from European countries cut by 24 percent year on year during the same period.”

Mounesan also said “Statistics and surveys indicate that health [and medical] tourism has grown in the country and portions of our hospitals are hosting health travelers.”

The article also claims that, according to official statistics, the country hosted some 400,000 medical tourists during the past Iranian year 1396 (ended March 20 2018). No source for this data was given.

Under the 2025 Tourism Vision Plan, Iran is expecting to increase its foreign arrivals from 4.8 million in 2014 to 20 million by 2025.