Posts tagged : "Tourism"

Kourosh Ziabari - The New Arab: UNESCO World Heritage Sites are natural areas and cultural, man-made structures judged to be outstandingly paramount to humanity, designated by the United Nations’ cultural agency as landmarks that merit international attention and conservation at home. Iran, however, as isolated and cornered as it might be these days, hosts 26 such properties dotted across the country, and is the world’s 10th country in terms of the frequency of World Heritage Sites. The last Iranian monument to be inscribed on the World Heritage Sites inventory in 2021 is the cultural landscape of Hawraman. Encompassing an extensive area in Western Iran, spanning the provinces of Kurdistan and Kermanshah, Hawraman is a...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: Iran’s unpopular quest for nuclear energy has dominated news headlines for decades. This has left little room for reporting on less-discussed topics about the country. One of these is tourism. At a time of a pandemic, Iran continues to face grueling international sanctions and domestic divisions. But it is an uncontested fact that the country has a long revered civilization, and getting to know the nation with all its intricacies and complexities is a challenging task. Universities around the world offer Iranian studies courses so students can learn about Iran and its history.  In recent years, growing demand to explore Iran has led to more travelers visiting the country, which is not a popular...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Iran’s tourism sector, the pearl of the post-nuclear accord and one of its last economic lungs under sanctions, now faces coronavirus-induced unraveling. The industry “cannot survive and will collapse” in the face of the recession precipitated by the global Covid-19 crisis, Iran’s official IRNA news agency assessed late last month. The stark warning came even as Iranian authorities proceeded with a phased re-opening of certain businesses and places of worship. Should the government of President Hassan Rohani fail to intervene and support the tourism industry, more than 1.5 million jobs risk being lost, IRNA reported. Banafsheh Tehrani is one of some 13,000 Iranian tour guides and tour...