TEHRAN – The number of foreign visitors arriving in Mashhad jumped 99 percent in the past Iranian calendar year (1401, which ended on March 20) compared to a year earlier, a local official said on Saturday.

Also, in 1401, more than 10,292 foreign flights landed and took off at Mashhad Airport, which is an 82% increase compared to 1400, Hassan Jafari, the head of the public-relations department at Hasheminejad international airport of Mashhad, said on Saturday.

The official, however, did not mention specific numbers for the inbound and outbound passengers during the consecutive years.

Some 1,372,000 foreign tourists passed through Mashhad Airport during the past Iranian year, Jafari said.

Mashhad, which is home to the shrine of Imam Reza (AS), the eighth Shiite imam, hosted millions of pilgrims during the last ten days of [the lunar month of] Safar (Sep. 17 to 27). The travelers came together to commemorate Arbaeen, which marks an end to the 40-day mourning period following the martyrdom of the Imam and his loyal companions at the Battle of Karbala on Muharram 10 in the year 61 AH (680 CE).

In August 2020, the spiritual tradition of pilgrimage to the holy shrine of Imam Reza (AS) was registered on the National Intangible Cultural Heritage list by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Handicrafts.

Mashhad, the capital of Khorasan Razavi province, embraces dozens of five-star hotels, hostels, and guest houses. The city has also the highest concentration of water parks in the country, and it also holds a variety of cultural and historical sites that are generally crowded. The northeastern metropolis is also a good place to buy top handwoven rugs and carpets, and it’s a staging post for travel to Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and little-touristic Khorasan regions.

AFM