The number of tourists who visited the historical city of Isfahan, in central Iran, showed a significant increase in the period between March and December 2000, reaching 100,000 people, reported the Iranian News Agency (IRNA).
Quoting head of the Isfahan tourism department, Manouchehr Moyaseri, the agency said that only 32,000 visited the province last year.
Most of the tourists were from Germany, Japan, France and Spain, he said.
"For the first time since the victory of the Islamic Revolution, around 80,000 maps, both in Arabic and English, of the city illustrating the historical
places both in English and Persian were distributed among the foreign tourists," he said.
The variety of historical monuments as well as the hospitality of the
people could be considered as the most important factors in attracting
foreign tourists to the region, he said.
According to a study published by Iran's tourism organization, climatic conditions are also of great benefit to the promotion of tourism.
"Statistics and figures indicate that the potentials of the tourist industry to generate hard currency are a lot greater than the present hard currency revenues resulting from the exportation of oil," said the study published in the organization's website -- Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
