Iran’s tourism industry has suffered 320.94 trillion rials ($1.14 billion) in losses due to the Covid-19 pandemic as of February 2020 until the spring of the current fiscal year (started March 21), a new report by Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture said.
Accommodations (hotels, guesthouses, etc.) suffered the highest losses worth 284.43 trillion rials ($1 billion), accounting for 88.6% of all losses in the tourism industry.
Travel agencies followed with 10.83 trillion ($38 million), amounting to 3.4% of total losses.
Iranian hotels have suffered over 200,000 billion rials ($714 million) in losses during the coronavirus pandemic, according to the president of the Iranian Hoteliers Society.
Jamshid Hamzehzadeh added that due to financial problems, the industry has had to undergo a great deal of downsizing as a result of Covid-19.
“About two-thirds of the staff members have been laid out, most of whom were skilled and trained,” he was quoted as saying by the news portal of Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (Tccim.ir).
According to the ICCIMA report, a total of 44,138 people lost their jobs in the tourism sector during the period, again with accommodations accounting for the lion’s share (21,154 people or 47.9%) followed by travel agencies (6,070 people or 13.8%)
According to the report, the share of tourism in Iran’s gross domestic product stood at 6.8% in 2019.
Before the pandemic, about 1 million Iranians would travel abroad while 20 million travel inside the country with a total of 75 million nights of stay averaged during the two months from the beginning of the 12th month of the Iranian year to the end of the first month of the following year (peak travelling season in Iran).
A total of 8 million foreign tourists (mainly from neighboring countries) visited Iran in the fiscal 2019-20, as the country was the third biggest tourist destination in the world, according to the report.
About 80% of tourism businesses in Iran are considered small and most of their employees are not covered by insurance.
The report expects the impact of Covid-19 to last between five and seven years.
Tourist Visas as of Late October
On the order of President Ebrahim Raeisi, Iran will resume issuing tourist visas as of late October after a 19-month stoppage, Tourism Minister Ezzatollah Zarghami tweeted recently.
The announcement came as Iran’s Health Ministry is reporting progress toward curbing a stubborn fifth wave of the coronavirus pandemic, as mass vaccination has gained pace in the country.
Since April 2020, amid the raging pandemic, the National Coronavirus Headquarters under former president, Hassan Rouhani, introduced a strict visa regime, suspending all tourism-related travels and allowing visitors solely for medical, business and academic purposes.
With those restrictions in place, all businesses across the tourism sector — from travel agents and hotels to transport companies and restaurants — have been in the red, some reporting bankruptcy and closures, with thousands of redundant staff members thrust into the unemployed community. Leading companies in the sector have relentlessly urged the headquarters to ease at least partly some of those rules, but to no avail.
Only months into the outbreak, Zarghami’s predecessor, Ali Asghar Mounesan, lamented the “near-zero level” nosedive of the sector.
Nevertheless, even before the pandemic, Iran’s tourism was already grappling with challenges, on top of them international sanctions. And Iranian officials have blamed much of the tourism industry’s failures on what they believe is Western “media propaganda” aimed at scaring travelers away from the country, according to Al-Monitor.
Home to 26 UNESCO Heritage Sites
Iran is home to one of the world’s oldest civilizations. With 26 cultural and natural UNESCO heritage sites, Iran ranks 10th. The list is dominated by palaces, bazaars, sites of worship, old water systems and remains of the historic Persian Empire.
The newly-inscribed Trans-Iranian Railroad connects the Caspian Sea in the northeast with the Persian Gulf in the southwest, and crosses two mountain ranges as well as rivers, highlands and four climatic areas.
The crash in international tourism due to the coronavirus pandemic could cause a loss of more than $4 trillion to the global GDP during 2020-21, according to an UNCTAD report published on June 30.
The estimated loss has been caused by the pandemic’s direct impact on tourism and its ripple effect on other sectors closely linked to it.
The report, jointly presented with the UN World Tourism Organization, says international tourism and its closely linked sectors suffered an estimated loss of $2.4 trillion in 2020 due to direct and indirect impacts of a steep drop in international tourist arrivals.
A similar loss may occur this year, the report warns, noting that the tourism sector’s recovery will largely depend on the uptake of Covid-19 vaccines globally.
“The world needs a global vaccination effort that will protect workers, mitigate adverse social effects and make strategic decisions regarding tourism, taking potential structural changes into account,” UNCTAD Acting Secretary-General Isabelle Durant said.
UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili said, “Tourism is a lifeline for millions, and advancing vaccination to protect communities and support tourism’s safe restart is critical to the recovery of jobs and generation of much-needed resources, especially in developing countries, many of which are highly dependent on international tourism.”
With Covid-19 vaccinations being more pronounced in some countries than others, the report says, tourism losses have reduced in most developed countries but worsened in developing countries.
Covid-19 vaccination rates are uneven across countries, ranging from below 1% of the population in some countries to above 60% in others.
According to the report, the asymmetric rollout of vaccines magnifies the economic blow tourism has suffered in developing countries, as they could account for up to 60% of the global GDP losses.
The tourism sector is expected to recover faster in countries with high vaccination rates, such as France, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States, the report says.
But experts don’t expect a return to pre-Covid-19 international tourist arrival levels until 2023 or later, according to UNWTO.
The main barriers are travel restrictions, slow containment of the virus, low traveler confidence and a poor economic environment.
