TEHRAN—Iran’s deputy tourism minister has said the waiting time for the issuance of tourist visas has reduced to one week.

“The process of issuing [tourist] visas used to be long, but now they are issued in a week at most,” Mehr quoted Ali-Asghar Shalbafian as saying on Monday.

“Of course, that simplification process was in line with the country’s policy to facilitate tourist arrivals,” Shalbafian said in a Tehran conference.

For the newest attempt, Iran and Russia have implemented a visa cancellation deal [for tourist groups of 5 to 50 travelers], the deputy minister added.

The Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts, in close collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, seeks a border-easing strategy based on which it may unilaterally drop visa requirements for passport holders of 60 states, the official noted.

According to Shalbafian, the rate of tourist arrivals in Iran, mostly from its neighboring countries, is “promising”. “The course of attracting inbound passengers was promising so that from the first of the year to end of Shahrivar, three million and 354 thousand travelers entered the country, which shows a growth of 38% compared to a year earlier,” he said.

He probably hinted at the country’s tourism revival as coronavirus restrictions have been eased, but remained way below pre-pandemic levels.

According to the latest United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) World Tourism Barometer, foreign tourist arrivals in the Islamic Republic reached some 2.93 million between January and July 2023.

Although the country’s performance as a tourism destination is still far below that of 2019, which was before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is improving slightly compared to last year's statistics.

The average statistics of Iran’s tourism from January to August 2023 is 50% lower than the same period in 2019 based on the barometer that tracks the sector’s post-pandemic recovery throughout 2023 up to the end of July.

Accordingly, Iran attracted 181,423 foreign travelers in January; 327, 816 people in February; 363,547 in March; 381.769 in April, 537,837 in May; 551.142 in June; and 590, 350 in July.

Another statistic compiled by Iran’s tourism ministry indicates the country saw 3.35 million tourist arrivals in the first half of the current Iranian calendar year (started March 21), which soars 38 percent year on year.

The Islamic Republic expects to reap a bonanza from its numerous tourist spots such as bazaars, museums, mosques, bridges, bathhouses, madrasas, mausoleums, churches, towers, and mansions, of which 27 are inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

AFM