Well-known Internet hotel booking service Booking.com has begun listing Tehran's hotels on its website for the first time. The two locations include Ferdowsi Grand Hotel and Tehran Grand Hotel. The two hotels already have room prices listed with Ferdowsi Grand charging $134 per night, while Tehran Grand has rooms listed at $133 on the website.
The double listing—a first for any Iranian hotelier brand—comes just weeks after the US holiday booking website began to offer international deals in Iranian rials for the first time.
The website also states that people have begun using the site with Ferdowsi Grand being booked five times and Tehran Grand booked four times.
Booking.com also states that reservations at both hotels are possible with a credit card. However, it is not known whether the hotels accept cards or use an intermediary to take payments. Both hotels have been online since early February, according to the site.
Financial Tribune contacted Booking.com for when, how and why they launched an outreach toward Iranians, making it one of the first US-based companies to do so, but it did not respond to the paper's request.
Prior suggestions that it could have been a glitch in the site's software are now thoroughly discounted, as the double listing shows the company has plans to push further into the local hotel market.
