Growth of tourists coming to Iran twice world's average

Soltanifar made the remarks in his statemwent to the administrative council.

He said that ICHHTO envisaged 10 percent growth for the tourist the sector in the next 10 years to achieve targets of the 20-Year Vision Plan.

He said that last year (2015), about 1.2 billion tourists from different countries visited Iran earning the country $1.476 billion.

Soltanifar noted that last year, 5,200,000 foreign tourists visited Iran and the figure should reach 20 million in the next 10 years.

Soltanifar said that half the tourists coming to Iran last year were religious and pilgrimage tourists.

Soltanifar said that the Islamic Iran annually hosts one percent of the world Shia Muslims and good income can be obtained from Halal tourism.

'Our goal is to host three percent of the world Shia Muslims in Islamic Iran in the next 10 years.'

The Vice-President said for the time being, Iran earns 7.5 billion dollars from tourism which should reach 35 billion dollars.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Soltanifar said that the statistics available indicated that more than 97 percent of foreign tourists visiting Iran have good interpretations of the Islamic Iran upon return to their homeland.

'The people believe that despite propaganda of the US and Israeli media, Iran enjoys sustainable security and democratic system.

Source: IRNA