Iran to reopen borders to tourism: minister

Iran’s newly appointed Minister of Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Handicrafts has announced that the country will soon lift restrictions on visitors, in an effort to boost the badly affected tourism sector. 

Ezzatollah Zarghami, who is considered a conservative, made the announcement at his swearing in ceremony, adding that he had spoken with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi about the lifting of restrictions.

No specific date for the lifting of restrictions was given, but it has been reported that visitors who have been given two doses of the vaccine will be welcomed into the country. 

Zarghami announcement that the country would soon be opened to visitors, was made as Iran’s Ministry of Health reported the the number of infections in the country was falling. 

On 21 September, Iran was seeing seven-day daily average of 17,020 new recorded cases a day, down from mid-August, when the country was experiencing seven-day daily averages of over 38,000 new recorded cases a day. 

To date, Iran has recorded over 118,000 deaths from Covid-19. 

The government has been pushing the population to get vaccinated, and after a slow start, they have now managed to vaccinate over half of the population. 

The restrictions imposed in Iran during the spread of the coronavirus had a severe impact on Iran’s tourism sector. 

All visas for tourism were suspended and the country only permitted those who were visiting the country for medical, business, or academic purposes to enter. 

Many hotels, travel companies, and restaurants were badly affected, with some forced to declare bankruptcy or close their businesses, putting thousands of people out of work. 

In the early months of the pandemic, the former Minister of Tourism said that Iran’s tourism sector was now at  a “near-zero level”.

Iranian museums opened on Sunday for the first time in over a year, marking the start of a long road to recovery. 

“We are absolutely delighted, and we think the people are too because they were fed up with staying home, and visiting museums improves their mood,” the director of Iran's museums, Mohammad-Reza Kargar, told AFP.

“We have safety protocols in place of course, and the number of visitors will be dependent on the space at our sites so the public stays safe and healthy,” he added. 

Iran was the country worst hit by Covid-19 in the Middle East.