1.1m Foreigners Visited Iran in Q1

About 1.1 million tourists traveled to Iran in the first three months of the current Iranian year (started March 21), an official at Iran's Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization said.

Hassan Gerami, deputy director of Tourism and Planning Office at ICHHTO, told Mizan Online that 1.1 million tourists, including Iranian expats, visited the country.

Iranian expats accounted for 360,200 tourists.

The top four source markets for Iran during the first quarter were Iraq (246,700 tourists), Azerbaijan (227,500), Afghanistan (156,200) and Turkey (133,392). Gerami did not provide any figures for Pakistan, Turkmenistan, India, China and Germany, which round up the top 10.

"The trend will most likely hold and there won't be drastic shifts in [the source countries'] rankings," he said.

The official stressed that "the country's policies need to shift toward facilitating travel to Iran for expats who, for whatever reason, cannot come home for a visit; this will help develop the sector".

In the same period, 1.98 million Iranians traveled abroad, marking a 9% increase year-on-year and registering a negative balance between inbound and outbound tourism.

"While this trend shows that people's purchasing power is gradually improving, it also points to weaknesses in our domestic tourism sector since people prefer to travel abroad," Gerami said.

The official added that "a considerable portion of outbound trips" are for religious purposes. Iran has set itself a target of 6.5 million inbound tourists in the current Iranian year that ends on March 20, 2018.

The objective has been set by the Resistance Economy Headquarters, which also aims to increase domestic tourism numbers to 120 million by the yearend. Iran's ultimate goal is to attract 20 million foreign tourists annually by 2025. However, with only eight years to go, the target is highly ambitious.

Last year, some 5.5 million travelers visited Iran, generating about $8 billion for the country. Regional countries make up the bulk of inbound tourists and last year no European country cracked the top 10 source markets for Iran.