Tehran, YJC. Iran’s tourism organization says the first 3 months of the Iranian year show a tripling of the number of tourists visiting the country compared to last year.
Iran’s Cultural Heritage Deputy Director of Tourism in
interview with Mehr News Agency said "The statistics that used to be given
formerly would count all sorts of arrivals and departures, which are
nonetheless agreed to by the World Tourism Organization. It says if someone is
out of his country for 24 hours and is not a resident and does not intend
business in the destination country, it is counted as tourism.”
Morteza Rahmani Movahed added "The statistics we gather are
those of official tours. An official tour is one which takes visa from the
police. When we compare the statistics of official tours in the same months of
the past two years, we find that there has been a 300-percent growth.”
He then added "So much so that in the first 3 months of this
year 23,625 people entered the country with tourist teams whereas in the same period
last year there were 7,495, indicating 31 percent growth.”
He pointed out "There is much coming and going to and from
the country which we did not count for the statistics. The tourists came mostly
from European countries, Australia, New Zeland, Korea, Jaqpan, and China. People
from Iraq also come on their own, whose statistics is registered in the individual
system.”