“According to the statistics released by the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), Iran has gained $11.7 billion in direct revenues in the current Iranian year (will end on March 19, 2020),” Mounesan said, addressing a ceremony in Southern port city of Bandar Abbas, Hormuzgan province, on Saturday.

The Iranian minister noted that Iran has high tourism potentials.

On Dec 4, 2019, Head of the Department of Passports and Visas of the Iranian Foreign Ministry said that since the beginning of the current Iranian year, 6.7 million foreign tourists have entered the country with visas issued for them.

At the inauguration ceremony of the National Conference on Ecotourism, Culture and Tourism Development in Mashhad, Mojtaba Karimi stated that the Iranian foreign ministry welcomed the process of facilitating tourist arrivals to the country, thus providing facilitation for issuing visas is on the agenda of the ministry.

He said that negotiations are underway with other countries to lift the visa barriers.

The facilitation of the issuance of visas led to the rise in the number of foreign tourists’ arrival to the country (from three million foreign tourists in 2014 to 7.73 million foreign tourists at the end of 2018).

He added that the issuance of electronic visas at the foreign ministry has started since 2016 and is now being issued in the shortest time.