A total of 4.1 million tourists visited Iran in 2022, indicating a 315% rise compared to the year before, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization.
The whopping rise in the number of inbound tourists may be attributed in part to the general relaxation of global preventative measures taken in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, the figure pales in comparison to 2019 when 9.11 million tourists visited the country — the peak of arrivals in recent years.
UNWTO data show the trend of arrivals went south after the 2019 peak until 2021, which is attributable to the onset of sanctions against Iran and the pandemic.
In fact, the trend in Iran follows similar pattern across the globe, as the total number of international tourist arrivals reached its peak of 1.46 billion in 2019. It dropped to 406.89 million in 2020, rose to 455.77 million in the following year and further jumped to 962.8 million last year.
The data also show July was the high season for inbound tourism in Iran last year, as 550,271 tourists visited the country in that month.