TEHRAN – Tourism Minister Reza Salehi Amiri said that in the past Persian year (1403), which ended on March 20, 2025, 3.5 million religious tourists visited Iran from Iraq, the Persian Gulf region, Central Asia and the Caucasus.
According to data compiled by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts, Iran recorded 7.3 million foreign tourist arrivals in 1403. The ministry said the figure follows the internationally recognized definition of tourism and counts anyone who spends at least one night in Iran as a tourist, including Iranian expatriates and foreigners.
The ministry also reported record domestic travel during the two-week Nowruz holiday in 1404, with more than 36 million trips recorded. It said the data was collected through mobile phone tracking to identify travelers’ final destinations, reducing the number of errors and duplicates.
Earlier this year, Salehi-Amiri emphasized that the ministry’s data collection methods are based on scientific and verifiable sources. “We speak the language of statistics and our data is based on reliable and verifiable sources,” he said. The ministry added that it would hold a technical meeting with private sector representatives to further scrutinize the figures.
According to previously published data, the number of foreign arrivals was 6.38 million in 1402 and 4.23 million in 1401.
According to the minister, approximately 4.5 million tourists visited the Islamic Republic in the first half of the current Iranian fiscal year (March-September 2025). The prime minister told reporters on the sidelines of a cabinet meeting that tourist flows in October and November had returned to the levels before Israel’s 12-day war, Mehr news agency reported.
He said he expected the number of tourists to increase by the end of the year compared to 1,403.
Salehi Amiri said that developing health tourism is a priority for the ministry. “A comprehensive medical tourism system has been designed in cooperation with the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Labor, the Social Security Agency, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other relevant institutions and will be announced soon,” he said.
He said Iran currently receives more than 1 million health tourists every year and aims to double that number and generate 6 billion euros by the end of the Seventh National Development Plan.
Iran strives to exploit its tourism assets, including bazaars, museums, mosques, bridges, baths, madrasas, mausoleums, churches, towers, and mansions, 29 of which are listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
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