The arrival of 3 million foreign tourists to the country in less than a year/ signing of tourism memorandum with 11 countries/ we still have 10% possibility of displaying historical works in museums.
According to the report of Arya Heritage reporter, Engineer Seyyed Ezzatullah Zarghami said in a speech on the TV program “Saf Aol” that was broadcast live on Tuesday evening, August 25, on the Khabar channel: “This ministry has 3 vice-chairs and has important and extensive missions in the fields of Economic, social and even political are important.
Our view in different missions should be transformational
He added: “Our main report in this ministry has been prepared in 30 axes and will soon be published in the media. In the book introducing the achievements of the government, six pages are devoted to the activities of this ministry.
Engineer Zarghami continued: “Basically, I believe that our approach to various missions should be a transformational approach. My view of the ministry is project-oriented, and that’s why we are looking to implement some projects and take a few steps forward.
He added: “In the first step, we must solve the problem system and move problem-oriented. That’s why I felt from the beginning that we can’t make a decision until we get the opinion of the experts and consult them. Therefore, we had specialized meetings with experts, including holding a meeting with cultural heritage veterans.”
The Minister of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts added: “Like this, specialized meetings have been held in the field of tourism and handicrafts. We are now determined to fix 20 issues ahead. Most of our issues are trans-sectoral and things are moving forward step by step.”
We have processed the resumption of the visa
He continued: “In the field of tourism, as the first task, the issuance of tourist visas was resumed. This issue remained unresolved and there was concern due to the spread of Corona. However, with the support of the president, visas were resumed and 2,900,000 people entered Iran in less than a year. This amount is growing and increasing.”
Engineer Zarghami said: “According to the forecasts of the World Tourism Organization, by the end of 2024, it will return to the normal state before Corona. This is despite the fact that we returned to normal earlier than the forecasts of international organizations. Also, in domestic tourism, we had a 40 percent increase in domestic tourists compared to before the spread of Corona.”
He added: “Of course, this year’s Nowruz, we were faced with a travel tsunami, and fortunately, with the cooperation of the Central Travel Service Coordination Headquarters, which has 23 member organizations, we are witnessing the prosperity of domestic tourism and coordination. This is while the hotels did not have good conditions during the Corona period, but now they have returned to their prosperity period.
Iranophobia is one of the obstacles to attracting foreign tourists
The Minister of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts also pointed to the obstacles facing the development of foreign tourism and added: “Designing the Iranophobia project and presenting a negative image of Iran in some media is one of the obstacles to attract foreign tourists. This is while we have many relative advantages and facilities that none of the countries in the region have. For this reason, they do everything they can to create an obstacle for the development of tourism. Some also help to create obstacles.”
Citing an example, he added: “Mr. Yonsi, the former minister of information, announced the arrest of a group whose activity was to hinder the growth of tourism. Meanwhile, some countries are working strongly in this field. For example, Qatar has now spent 200 billion dollars on tourism and using the opportunity of the World Cup.”
Engineer Zarghami said: “In tourism, we have various factors that must grow together in a balanced way, otherwise we may face problems.” Therefore, the first thing we did was to provide the infrastructure. For example, when our marine tourism was zero, we investigated the reason. We saw that the fuel problem is one of these causes. In this regard, we presented proposals to the government and subsidized fuel has been allocated to vessels and pleasure ships.
We are following the project of cheap land travel with neighboring countries
In another part of his speech, he said: “Our priority is to strengthen relations with neighboring countries, and now we are pursuing the project of cheap land travel with neighboring countries. Besides that, pilgrimage tourism is a special advantage of our tourism, for which we have given special programs and in this regard, we have signed the final memorandum with various institutions, including Faraja, with the aim of developing and promoting tourism as much as possible. This is while a memorandum of understanding has been signed with 11 countries.
The Minister of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts added: “Iranophobia is an important issue and that’s why we are looking to deal with this project. Americans have efforts in this regard. We signed a memorandum of understanding with the Islamic Culture and Communication Organization, and today all the cultural advisers are practically representatives of this ministry, and one of their missions is to counter Iranophobia and introduce Iran.”
He reminded: “We should not close the doors of tourism due to the fear of a specific issue. Now we have good arrangements with the Ministry of Information. Because the duty of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts is to solve problems in the way of tourism and create interaction with different institutions.
We are behind in maintaining, displaying and introducing works
Engineer Zarghami also mentioned the field of cultural heritage and added: “Cultural heritage is the root of our civilization. We rank 9th in the field of tangible cultural heritage and 7th in the field of intangible heritage, and we have 26 world registered works. The relative advantage of our tourism is historical and civilizational tourism and natural tourism. Compared to the wealth that we have, the ability to store, display and introduce works is very lagging behind. Of course, I believe that museums should go out of the static state and become an active museum. Currently, we have more than 800 museums, but we still have 10% of the possibility of displaying historical objects and documents.
He continued: “We have an unknown phenomenon called the reservoir. I explained to the people that we have valuable objects stored in our reservoirs that we need to build many museums.
The Minister of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts reminded: “This is despite the fact that we have 35 nationally registered works and our restoration and maintenance budget is almost zero compared to this amount of works and sites, and for each of our historical works it reaches 300 thousand tomans a day, which It is not even the daily wage of a worker.”
He said: “In this regard, the construction budget has grown by 77 percent, which is twice the growth of the government’s construction budget.” The provincial trips that Mr. President also goes to for the year 1401 and 1402 are estimated to be three thousand billion tomans for us.
Calling on donors to help preserve cultural heritage
Engineer Zarghami added: “We have a school-building benefactor, so we invite all benefactors and interested parties who are ready for the preservation and restoration of historical monuments to help. People should be helped. Of course, we also did good things. For example, we don’t allow construction in the arena. I have seen the problems closely during the provincial trips and I give people the right sometimes, but we will solve these problems and preserve the cultural heritage with this wealth.”
He emphasized: “Of course, one of our advantages is the skilled restoration force. Even in meeting with the ministers of some countries, they requested to send restoration forces to restore the historical monuments of those countries.”
In Iran, we also restore fire temples
The Minister of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts continued: “With all the problems we have in the budget, we budget for all historical buildings, even the restoration of churches. We have three world-registered churches and the restoration of churches and fire temples is underway. Mr. Fuladi is a cleric and he is 90 years old. He has been restoring historical buildings since he was 10 years old, and he has restored both the mosque and the fire temple. When I asked him about the motivation for restoring the fire temple, he answered me with arguments from the Holy Quran.
He went on to say: “Some people intended to create two poles in the field of cultural heritage, knowingly or unknowingly, and create a separation between ancient Iran and Iran after Islam. But this is not really the case, and Iran before Islam and after Islam is no different.”
Engineer Zarghami pointed out the damage to historical monuments in the flood and added: “In the recent flood, I gave a report to the government. The initial estimate was that about 730 of our buildings were damaged and 2 thousand billion Tomans were damaged. “We need to make careful investments to protect these works.”
He added: “This ministry was known as a second-rate institution in the past years. Sometimes the importance of its missions, including tourism, was discussed, but no importance was given to it, perhaps because tourism money did not reach the government directly. But the reality is that paying attention to tourism is job-creating.”
We have no sign of Iranian architecture
In another part of his speech, the Minister of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts mentioned the issue of architecture and restoration of historical buildings and added: “One of the pathologies that we must do is the state of architecture after the revolution. Unfortunately, after the revolution, our architecture was damaged. Of course, these words may cost me money. For example, we are building a mosque next to the city theater, but we don’t have any signs of Iranian architecture. After the revolution, we have problems in the field of architecture, we must announce it loudly and we must compensate. “I gave orders in this regard from the first day, and the deputy of cultural heritage is following plans in this regard.”
In the final part of his speech, he also mentioned the issue of ecotourism and noted: “Ecotourism is a good capacity and we are multiplying it. Paying attention to different aspects of ecotourism and their capacities can compensate for our lack of accommodation. In addition, contrary to the opinion of some, ecotourism does not harm the culture.