Iran will give free visas during the World Cup to encourage tourism

Iran announced on Wednesday that it will offer free visas during the Qatar World Cup 2022 to try to attract tourists.

“Visas will be free during the 2022 World Cup,” government spokesman Ali Bahadori Yahromí reported on Twitter.

The spokesman stated that the measure seeks to attract tourists taking advantage of the fact that they are in nearby Qatar and thus promote the tourist industry of the Persian country.

The visa to enter Iran as a tourist from Spain it costs 75 eurosfor example, price that will be omitted during the months of November and December that the World Cup lasts.

Iran had been months studying the ideaas Iranian Tourism Minister Ezzatollah Zarghami recently explained.

“A significant number of travelers, mainly young peoplen, will arrive in Qatar to attend the World Cup. This offers an exceptional opportunity to attract tourists,” Zarghami told Iranian media.

Iran has 26 World Heritage Sitesd of Unesco, including the famous Persepolis, and a diverse nature that invites both mountain and desert lovers, but does not quite attract the number of tourists it would like.

Since the United States withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in 2018 and reimposed Economic sanctionsthe sector suffered a significant drop, with a large reduction in tourists, especially Europeans.

In 2019, some 8.8 million tourists foreigners arrived in Iran, of which some 7,00,000 million from neighboring and regional countries, such as Iraq, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Turkey or Pakistan.

After the arrival of the covid pandemic in early 2020, international tourism fell by 94%.

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