TEHRAN –Holidaymakers have made some 91 million overnight stays in hotels and guest houses of Mazandaran province during the first ten months of the current year (started on March 21, 2022).

“Since the beginning of this year, 91 million overnight stays have been registered in the province,” ISNA quoted Rouhollah Solgi, the deputy governor-general, as saying on Wednesday.

The official noted that the number of passengers arriving in Mazandaran during this year’s Noruz holiday exceeded expectations.

For the next Noruz (which marks the Iranian new year, 1402), we are expecting to somehow face a tsunami of passengers, the official said.

According to data compiled by the provincial tourism directorate, a total of 7,979,076 overnight stays were registered by the hotels, guest houses, ecolodge units, traditional lodging houses, apartment hotels, and tourist centers during the first three weeks of the summer this year.

Mazandaran has 63 hotels, 51 motels, 91 apartment hotels, 293 eco-lodge complexes, 4,939 guest houses, 8 recreational complexes, 123 beach facilities, and 12 camping sites, with a total capacity of 1,246,177 people per night.

This year, domestic vacationers made almost 14 million overnight stays across Mazandaran during the two-week Noruz holidays.

Sandwiched between the towering Alborz mountain range and the Caspian Sea, Mazandaran has a rich yet turbulent history. An early civilization flourished at the beginning of the first millennium BC in Mazandaran (Tabarestan).

Its insecure eastern and southeastern borders were crossed by Mongol invaders in the 13th and 14th centuries. Cossacks attacked the region in 1668 but were repulsed. It was ceded to the Russian Empire by a treaty in 1723, but the Russians were never secure in their occupation. The area was restored to Iran under the Qajar dynasty.

The northern section of the region consists of lowland alongside the Caspian and upland along the northern slopes of the Alborz Mountains. Marshy backlands dominate the coastal plain, and extensive gravel fans fringe the mountains. The climate is permanently subtropical and humid, with very hot summers.

AFM