TEHRAN, Iran, Jan 31
Trend:
Iran's tourism was effected by the recent events including assassination of General Soleimani and Ukraine plane crash, but the page is turned, said president of Iran Hoteliers Association.
Jamshid Hamzehzadeh commented claims about the fall of foreign tourist flow after these events and prospects of cooperation in tourism sector with neighbor countries in an interview with Trend.
"It is understandable that after these events European and American tours were canceled; however, the number of tours from China been increased. Recently, some canceled tours were rebooked, and we expect more tourists in Iran," Hamzehzadeh added.
"In Iran's tourism sector the volume of foreign tourists is less than domestic tourists. Currently, domestic tourism has improved, and the hotel reservations for Nowruz holiday (starts March 21, 2020) have already been made," the official said.
In his words, the tourist flow during past ten months of current Iranian year (began March 21, 2019) has increased compared to the same period of last Iranian year (started March 21,2018).
The official has rejected the claims that Iran's tourism has falling to zero due to recent events.
"The page is turned, and we have seen the signs that the airlines are resuming flights to Iran air space," Hamzehzadeh said.
"The hotel problems are related to heavy taxes and increase of utility bills," the official said. "There are talks with travel agencies in hospitality industry in order to better organize tours. Tourism culture has improved compared to the situation in the past three years."
"While there were very few travel agencies operate domestic tours ten years ago, their number has increased," he added.
"In terms of cooperation in the tourism sector, Iran's priority is cooperation with neighbor countries, which includes arranging joint tours, industry exhibitions and joint training workshops," Hamzehzadeh added.
"Our relations with Turkey are developing; our companies participate in the hospitality industry exhibition which is held in city of Van. Furthermore, experts from Turkey have conducted several training workshops in Iran. We also import hotel equipment from Turkey," the official added.
"We know that Azerbaijan has achieved significant progress in hospitality sector, and we are very much interested to developing cooperation with Azerbaijan in this sector," he said.