Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 3
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
The number of tourists visited Iran in the first four months of the current fiscal year has increased significantly, according to Ali Asghar Mounesan, Iran’s vice president and the head of Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization of the Islamic Republic.
Mounesan said that the number of tourists that visited Iran in March 20 to July 20 (first four months of the current fiscal year) has witnessed a 38 percent growth ear-on-year, Iranian media reported.
However, the senior official did not nveil the exact number of the tourists.
According to the Iranian Culture and Heritage Organization’s official statistics, over the first four months of the last Iranian fiscal year (March 20-July 20, 2017), 1.6 million tourists arrived in Iran.
Given the 38 percent growth, the number of tourists arrived in Iran in the first four months of the current fiscal year will be equal to 2.2 million.
According to the Culture and Heritage Organization’s statistics, 5.11 million tourists visited Iran over the last fiscal year, ended March 20, 4.3 percent more year-on-year.
The top five nations are Iraq (1.356 million tourists, 3 percent fall), Azerbaijan (959,653 tourists, 2.2 percent fall), Afghanistan (860,000 tourists, 26 percent increase), Turkey (573,850 tourists, 29 percent increase) and Pakistan (273,200 tourists, 13 percent increase).
The ranking is as follows: Turkmenistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, India, China and Germany.
Germany citizens were the top European tourists who arrived in Iran during the last fiscal year. Over 62,900 German tourists traveled to the Islamic Republic in the period, 16.9 percent less compared to the same period of the preceding year.
France (43,200 tourists, 2.5 percent less), Italy (32,000 tourists, 22.3 percent less), Netherlands (22,350 tourists, 12.6 percent increase), UK (21,800 tourists, 5.4 percent less) and Austria (13,700 tourists, 15 percent less) were the top European countries from where tourists visited Iran in the mentioned period.
In total 257,200 tourists from the EU visited Iran in the last fiscal year, 11 percent less in comparison with the preceding year.
The statistics also indicate that over 2,325 tourists from the US visited Iran in the 12-month period, registering a huge fall by 63.5 percent year-on-year.
Iran’s tourism sector revenues stood at $8.23 billion in the last fiscal year, registering a fall by 1.1 percent year-on-year.
According to Mounesan more than 1,900 projects are being carried out in Iran’s tourism sector, valuing around $10 billion.
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