The head of tourism organization
in Iran reported a 42% drop in the number of European and American tourists to Iran in
the second half of 2018 due to security threats and US sanctions imposed on the country, although
the cost of travel to Iran has dropped by 50 percent.
Ibrahim Borfarj told ISNA news
agency that local agencies had reduced their travel to Iran by about 56 percent
due to currency fluctuations. He explained that the price reduction is due to
the fact that foreign agencies are aware of the real price of currency in Iran.
Borfarj criticized the failure of
the Iranian state agencies in promoting for tourism, saying that officials are
promoting for tourism in the radio and television, while the target audience of
such promotions are foreigners outside the country.
Reduced demand for foreign flights
In the same context, Murtada Qurbani, a travel official, has announced on
Sunday a big decline in demand for foreign flights due to high exchange rates.
He added that flights from Tehran
to Georgia has dropped to 60 per cent, while flights from Tehran to Istanbul
has decreased by 50 per cent. Mohammad Khayatian, deputy head of the Iranian
Tourism Organization, said earlier that the volume of Iranian travel abroad had
dropped to 11 percent.
Iran's tourism has witnessed a
significant decline over the last four decades, as Iran faces several problems,
most notably the negative mental image of foreign tourists about the security
and intellectual situation in Iran, as well as the lack of hotels and leisure
centers compared with many countries of the world.
