TEHRAN – Fars province attracted over 165,000 foreign tourists in the first two months of the current calendar year (March 21 – May 21), up 42 percent from a year earlier, the provincial tourism chief announced on Monday.

The average age of the sightseers is lower in comparison to that of the preceding years with a rise on the number of European travelers, ISNA reported, quoting Fars province’s Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Department Director Mossayeb Amiri as saying.

A total of 116,257 overseas tourists visited various historical and cultural sites across the province in the same period last year, Amiri added.

Celebrated as the heartland of Persian culture for over 2000 years, Fars is home to magnificent historical sites dating back to Medes, Achaemenid, Parthian, Sassanid and Islamic eras. Shiraz, its capital, has long been synonymous with education, nightingales, and poetry embedding splendid gardens, exquisite mosques and whispered echoes of ancient sophistication.

The government has put in a great deal of effort to revive tourism and hospitality businesses since President Hassan Rouhani assumed office in August 2013. Under the 2025 Tourism Vision Plan, the country is expecting to increase the number of tourism arrivals from 4.8 million in 2014 to 20 million in 2025.

Following a landmark nuclear deal Tehran and world powers clinched in 2015, Iran is repeatedly named as a hot travel destination by a circle of international media outlets in terms of its rich history, picturesque sceneries, traditions, cuisine and hospitable people.

PHOTO: A view of Naqsh-e Rustam in Fars province. Located about 12 km northwest of Persepolis, the historical necropolis embraces rock-hewn royal tombs and bas-relief carvings associated with the Achaemenid and Sassanid eras.

AFM/MG