Page 49 - IRANRptDec21

Previous local media reports have told how TPO, as well as Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organization (PMO) and foreign ministry, are working to enable the acquisition of roll-on, roll-off (ro-ro) vessels for the lines. Iran relies on Russian ro-ro ships on Caspian Sea routes.
9.1.5 Tourism sector news
Iran set to resume issuing tourist visas in late October
Caspian countries ‘developing concept for sea tourism’
Hotel closure rate in Iran has hit 30% amid pandemic says federation
Iran will later this month resume issuing tourist visas, Iran’s Minister for Tourism and Cultural Heritage Ezatollah Zarghami has announced, according to Mehr News.
Tourism to Iran has all but come to a halt given the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that started early last year, with tourism visas issued to foreigners outside the country mostly postponed and the visa-on-arrival scheme frozen at all airports. But with a redoubled drive to vaccinate Iranians against coronavirus, the prospect of allowing foreign tourists to visit became feasible, officials have said.
“By an order of President [Ebrahim Raisi] the issuance of tourist visas and the flow of foreign tourists from land and air borders will be resumed from [the Persian calendar month of] Aban [October 23 – November 21], following 19 months of suspension,” Zarghami was quoted as saying.
Prior to the pandemic, 240,000 people were directly employed and 550,000 were indirectly employed in the Iranian tourism industry, industry estimates suggest.
The five countries with a Caspian Sea coastline intend to develop tourism segments including ecological, beach, pilgrimage and cross-border, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said during last week’s 6th Caspian Media Forum in Astrakhan, Russia. Under the 5th Caspian Summit communique, bodies of the Caspian Sea states—Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan—were instructed to hold five-sided consultations on tourism in the Caspian Sea region. These consultations went ahead on August 27, 2019 in Aktau, Kazakhstan.
The most important task now, Zakharova said, was the creation of an architecture of cooperation between the Caspian Sea countries in the field of tourism, with a clear definition of its legal framework, the development of convenient visa mechanisms and the coordination of cruise tourism routes. “Currently, a draft agreement with the Caspian countries in the field of tourism is being worked out, with the involvement of commercial structures of the coastal countries. Also, government departments are working on the issue of tourism development in the Caspian Sea basin along the Astrakhan-Baku-Anzali-Turkmenbashi-Aktau route, with the involvement of a public-private partnership mechanism for this task,” Zakharova added.
Some 30% of hotels in Iran have shut down since the start of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in the country in February, the Federation of Hotel Owners has said.
A collapse in bookings and lack of support provided to hotel owners to stay solvent saw many hotels either forced to close or mothball operations, it added.
“The industry has suffered Iranian rial 85tn ($304mn at the free market rate) in losses because of the pandemic and the radical decline in domestic and international travel,” federation representative Jamshid Hamzehzadeh was quoted as saying.
49 IRAN Country Report December 2021 www.intellinews.com