Iran predicts that two million Chinese tourists will visit Iran each year after the cancellation of the visa requirement for Chinese nationals.
“Some 150 million Chinese visited many countries and we want to host two million tourists from China each year,” said Ali Asqar Munesan, head of the Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization of Iran on Sunday, IRNA reports.
Earlier in the day, the Iranian government agreed to drop visa requirement for Chinese citizens. The move is aimed to increase the number of Chinese who want to visit Iran and to raise the government’s non-oil revenues as well.
Munesan called the decision “an effective step” to help increase Chinese tourists.
“We should believe that tourism industry generates revenues more than the oil industry and that sanctions don't affect the tourism sector,” he said, adding that 52,000 Chinese tourists visited Iran last year.
The Iranian government also agreed to stop stamping passports of the incoming foreigners to avoid the US retaliation as well as help raise its non-oil revenues.