Iran’s Inbound Tourism Related Policies: Foreigners Are Not Welcome

Abstract

Despite having many attractions for tourism including archeology, ecology, culture, or adventure; Iran cannot attract deserving amount of inbound tourists. The hypothesis of this article is that Iran has policies each adversely affecting some or all of the above-said categories. Iran's foreign policies on issuing visa, nuclear energy program, and relations with the West; legal policies on convictions, remedies, values and rights of the non-Muslims; cultural policies on dress code, hotels, archeological assets and street festivals; economic policies on car production, forests and protected areas, foreign currency devaluation, and banking and insurance services; infrastructural policies on waste disposal systems, waste water treatment plants, dam construction, airways system, railways and roads are adversely affecting the inbound tourism.

Keywords: Tourism – Iran – National policy