As the head of the Air Travel and Tourism Services Association has mentioned international and domestic travels during the Nowruz holiday has decreased by about 85% compared to the same period in 2019. Domestic travel also shows a decrease of about 70%.
The Deputy Minister of Tourism, Vali Teymouri, has announced that Nowruz trips international and domestically have decreased by 96% compared to Nowruz in 2019. He believes that according to the restrictions and travel bans on Nowruz 2020, the statistics should be compared with the numbers they have from 2019.
According to him, from March 19, 2021, to April 13, 2021, 2 million 557 thousand 841 people were registered to stay overnight in centres under the supervision of Iran’s Ministry of Cultural Heritage, International Tourism and Handicrafts.
He also calculated that if we consider the average stay of two nights, only one million people have travelled on Nowruz this year in Iran international and domestically.
However, the chairman of the board of directors of the Air Travel and international Tourism Services Association, Harmatullah Rafiei estimates that domestic travel on Nowruz dropped by about 70 per cent, citing airline tickets, trains, tours and accommodation.
However, in some destinations such as Kish, the occupancy rate of accommodation reached 70%, while in cities such as Mashhad, most hotels were left without passengers and closed.
Rafi’i added that the complicated economic situation in Iran, the increase in the cost of international travel, and on the other hand the contradiction about travel and reimbursement of expenses if flights are cancelled made people travel less.
He said “People’s economic structure has fallen apart because the exchange rate has risen a couple of times higher compared to two years ago. If people used to go to Turkey (international travel) for five or six million a few years ago, now they have to pay 25 million (Iran ’s money) per person.”