Iran's objective: Attracting one million Chinese tourists each year

Beijing, April 17, IRNA – Tourism expert and head of Iran's booth at 11th China Outbound Travel & Tourism Market (COTTM) said here Friday that attracting one million Chinese tourists to visit Iran annually is the country's objective in the long run. Mohammad Eslami-Masrur who was speaking with the IRNA correspondent in Beijing, Fahad Dusti, said that China is one of the major tourism industry targets for the world countries with tourism attractions and close cooperation between the two countries' tourism organization can be beneficial for boosting the Iranian tourism industry. He reiterated that in the year 2011 China was the third top tourism destination in the world, but the top exporter of Chinese tourists to various destinations. Eslami-Masrur said that according to estimates made by the Word Tourism Organization (UNWTO), in the year 2020 one hundred million Chinese tourists will be travelling around the globe each year. The tourism expert said that the growing number of the Chinese tourism will definitely intrigue the world tourism destination countries to resort to all possible means for attracting those millions of tourists. 'That is the reason why participation in this exhibition (COTTM) is of great significance for all countries, including Iran,' he added. The participating countries in the international Chinese tourism fair have set up 150 booths in this exhibition. Now entering its 11th year, COTTM is regarded as the industry’s most important platform and remains the only business to business event that focuses purely on the burgeoning outbound market.