Tourism Players Told to Plan for East Asian Markets

Iran's tourism authority has given industry players until the weekend to come up with a plan to target the growing East Asian travel markets.

Morteza Rahmani Movahed, deputy for tourism at Iran's Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization, made the statement on Wednesday during a meeting with representatives of travel agencies who are part of the workgroup to develop East Asian markets.

"East Asian countries provide a great opportunity to increase Iran's tourism revenue and develop the sector," Movahed was quoted as saying by Mehr News Agency.

Those at the meeting have been given 10 days (from Wednesday) to brainstorm and devise a comprehensive plan to increase inbound tourist numbers from East Asia.

Movahed named China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and Malaysia, as well as India, as potential destinations.

In June, ICHHTO chief, Zahra Ahmadipour, said her office would discuss the possibility of relaxing visa regulations with China, Japan and South Korea.

China is also a priority target for Iran, ranking among the top five in Tehran's list of target markets. Chinese tourists are high-spenders and in 2016 splurged around $261 billion on foreign travel, setting a new record.

The East Asian nation is also the world's largest outbound travel market with around 135 million Chinese tourists traveling abroad last year.

South Korea's outbound travel market has also been growing rapidly since 2011, increasing by over 52% to 19.3 million in 2015. In 2015, South Koreans spent more than $21.2 billion on foreign trips.

Over 17.1 million Japanese people traveled overseas in 2016, spending more than $29 billion.