Baku, Azerbaijan, June 12
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Iran plans to build 800 new hotels, the country's Vice-President and the head of the Cultural Heritage Organization Massoud Soltanifar said.
At the present, Iranian private sector is investing for construction of at least 800 one to five star hotels as well as hotel apartments across the country, Soltanifar said, Tasnim news agency reported June 12.
While commenting on physical progress of the projects, he said that the projects are completed by 10 to 90 percent.
He further said that Iran has signed two MoUs with German and Turkish firms on building 20 five-star hotels in different parts of Iran.
The German firm will construct 10 five-star hotels within seven years, he said, adding 10 five-star hotels also will be constructed by Turkish investors.
Iran plans to attract 20 million tourists per year to generate $25-30 billion in revenue by 2025, Soltanifar said.
He further said that currently some 5.2 million tourists visit Iran annually, which is significantly low compared to the target of nine million tourists for 2015.
The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has suggested that Iran's international tourism revenues in 2013 amounted to $1.3 million.
Meanwhile, the World Bank (WB) reported that 4.96 million tourists arrived in Iran in 2014. The WB statistics indicates 1.18 billion inbound tourists across the globe in 2014 with an expenditure of $1.426 trillion.