The Iran-China Friendship Association convened a panel of tourism experts during the second conference on the prospects of developing relations between the two countries on Sept. 4-5 to discuss the so far neglected sector in bilateral ties.
China has emerged as the world's largest tourist source market with 120 million outbound travelers each year. Moreover, it hosts over 85 million inbound tourists annually, Alef news website reported.
With these figures, the East Asian country is a key player in the global tourism industry.
However, Iran reportedly received only 100,000 Chinese visitors last year, the majority of which were business travelers. In addition, the Chinese ambassador in Tehran put the number of Iranian tourists to his country at around 115,000 last year.
The statistics show that Iran's share of the lucrative market is far from ideal. The panel discussion was one Iran's few attempts to increase its share of the cake.
During the session, Moslem Shojaei, an official with the marketing and advertising office of Iran's Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization, elaborated on his organization's efforts to get into the East Asian state's travel market. "Following the previous conference, we realized that we have no knowledge of China's market … the result was the establishment of the Chinese tourism desk in ICHHTO," he said.
Information Campaign
After sessions with travel-related industries, it turned out that the sector was in dire need of information about the potential.
To fill the gap, "a book on the Chinese tourism market was prepared and handed out to 30 organizations," he added.
Besides, a plan has been devised in which possible strategies of other entities to contribute to the expansion of Iran-China tourism ties have been outlined.
"With this plan, we can devise a five-year project with the purpose of winning 1% of the market in the sixth year," he said.
Shojaei, however, noted that the measures are nowhere near sufficient to achieve the target of 1% and faster steps are required.
A major challenge for Iran is the lack of Chinese speaking tour guides to lead the groups of visitors to the country.
This, according to Ali Sadrnia, chief of Iran Tourist Guides Association, can be addressed by "employing a Chinese tour guide with mastery of English and an Iranian English-speaking guide at the same time."
Obviously, training Chinese-speaking guides would be a more effective move but would take longer to bear fruit.
Another challenge with regard to Chinese tourists is their practice of sharing flats with their compatriots in Iran rather than staying in hotels. It has been reported that the Chinese residing in Iran for study or other purposes rent a whole block of apartments and offer the flats to their fellow citizens.
Harmful Practice
Hormatollah Rafiei, head of Travel Agents Guild Association, said his association is not concerned with the hotels' dropping profit as a result of the practice, but rather with the image of tourist services in Iran.
"A tourist who is not satisfied with the services will not only become a critic, but will also discourage others from traveling to Iran," he warned.
Ramin Zabihmand, an Iranian Chinese-speaking guide, also called on both sides' authorities to bring tourism activities within a legal framework since informal operations will eventually harm the industry.
"Development of the market [in this way] will be dangerous in the long run because it will cause damage to the environment, local communities and the country's economy [on the whole]," he said.
Furthermore, a number of Chinese students in Iran have been reported to act as tour guides for their compatriots.
Zabihmand called on the Foreign Ministry to prevent their work with student visas and asked the Chinese government officials to oversee and control the activities of their citizens in Iran.
"Relying on ways of making travel more affordable by using unauthorized guides and flats might be profitable in the short term but will eventually eliminate Iran from the list of the nation's destinations," he noted.
Rafiei also pledged measures to increase the participation of Iranian travel companies in international exhibitions and called on Chinese officials to approach them so that travel ties will be developed through legal channels.
