President Hassan Rouhani appointed Ali Asghar Mounesan as caretaker of the newly-approved Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts on Wednesday.
Earlier, Asadollah Abbasi, spokesman of Majlis Presiding Board, told reporters that as per Article 123 of Iran’s Constitution and a single-urgency motion, Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani communicated the ratified bill to the president on Aug. 17, President.ir reported.
The Iranian Parliament approved the conversion of Iran's Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization into a ministry on Aug. 1, 2018. From a total of 199 lawmakers present, 137 MPs voted in favor and 41 voted against, while one abstained.
Under the conversion plan, ICHHTO will turn into a ministry with all its current duties and authorities, without the expansion of its administrative structure and workforce.
Any possible costs arising from the change will be covered by savings in government expenses.
The legislation requires all the property and human resources of the organization to be passed over to the new ministry.
The law bans any increase in the workforce, facilities and expenses of the ministry until the end of the Sixth Development Plan (2017-22).
About 7.8 million tourists traveled to Iran during the last Iranian year that ended March 20 to register a 52.5% growth compared with the preceding year.
A majority of foreign travelers visiting Iran last year were from neighboring countries.
According to Mounesan, the lower costs of Iran’s travel packages have made the country more attractive for foreigners.
In recent months, Iranian authorities have redoubled efforts to give a boost to the tourism sector to increase foreign currency revenues and create jobs under the declining economic conditions.
The decline in the national currency’s value last year has meant that travelling to and shopping in Iran are cheaper for foreign nationals.
"The development of tourism infrastructure, considerable volume of investments in the tourism sector, along with the issuance of electronic visa and visa waiver for target countries, could be named as the main causes of the growth in the number of foreign travelers," he has been quoted as saying.
Mounesan believes tourism revenues can replace those of the oil sector.
According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, Iran's travel and tourism sector had a growth of 1.9% to contribute 1,158 trillion rials ($9.96 billion) or 6.5% of overall GDP and create 1,334 jobs (5.4% of total employment) in 2018.
International visitors spent 168,954 billion rials ($1.45 billion) in Iran in 2018.
WTTC expects the number of international arrivals to stand at 6.5 million in 2019.
Iraq was the main source of tourism for Iran in 2018, as Iraqis constituted 24% of all inbound visitors.
Other major sources were Azerbaijan (17%), Turkey (8%), Pakistan (4%) and Bahrain (2%). The remaining 46% came from the rest of the world.
