At least 26 travel agencies operating in Iran's capital have had their licenses revoked due to unlawful operations, as tourism authorities are tightening their oversight following severe public backlash.
"These agencies had various complaints against them, in addition to flouting regulations. Therefore, we issued several warnings to them and were trying to resolve their issues, but we had to legally revoke their licenses because they remained indifferent to the warnings," Shahram Alimohammadi, the head of tourism division of Tehran office at Iran Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization, said.
"Revoking licenses is not exclusive to travel agencies as any other violating entity can face punitive measures," he told ILNA on Tuesday.
Late August, Alimohammadi had announced that 18 travel and tourism agencies were shuttered.
In recent months, Iran's currency has devalued sharply in anticipation of returning stringent US sanctions after US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from Iran's nuclear deal with world powers in May. It has significantly impacted the country's tourism and travel industry.
Local travel agencies are increasingly finding that people cannot afford to travel as much as they did before. This has led to a market stagnancy and forced many travel agencies to dispense with a portion of their workforce. To counter this, many of them have jacked up their prices, leading to many public complaints.
On the other hand, Iran's inbound tourism sector has taken a big hit as well. Even as technically the cost of travelling to Iran has significantly dropped, foreign airlines have found that maintaining Iran flights is not economically viable. In this vein, British Airways, Air France and KLM have all cancelled their trips to Iran while insisting that their decisions are not political in nature.
On Tuesday, Alimohammadi said ICHHTO is not keen to revoke the licenses of travel agencies or other related entities, because maintaining jobs is a top priority under the current difficult circumstances, adding that it is compelled to take action.
"That is because if anything happens to a customer, we have to deal with the problem as per our regulations," he said. "So we have become more sensitive concerning the implementation of our guidelines and act more vigorously when extending or issuing licenses to better support customer rights," he said.
The official noted that the authorities do not issue new licenses or extend previous ones without personally inspecting the agencies.
At present, each travel agency must deposit 500 million rials ($3,000) worth of bank guarantees, half of it in cash and the rest in collateral, to ICHHTO for the organization to be able to reimburse wronged customers in case of any violation by the agency.
But it takes a lot for an agency to be disqualified. As Alimohammadi outlined, at first ICHHTO opens a case for an agency, if it receives many complaints. The case is then referred to the Disciplinary Committee of the organization and the agency is temporarily suspended, if violations are proven.
"But if the agency continues to function as it did before and complaints against it continue … we will be left with no choice but to revoke its license," he said.
Recently, there were reports of a number of agencies declaring bankruptcy and discontinuing their operations.
Alimohammadi noted that since Iranians have increasingly turned toward local travel, as outbound trips have become much more expensive, local agencies are faring comparatively better.
"I can say with documented evidence that no agency in Tehran has filed for closure or bankruptcy with ICHHTO," he said, but also conceded that some agencies may have faced problems because of giving up their outdated business models that do not comply with electronic tourism standards.
Currently, 2,100 travel agencies are operating in Tehran.
