Coronavirus has so far caused "12 trillion tomans" of damage to Iran's tourism sector

An Iranian tourism official has said that the damage to the country's tourism due to the coronavirus outbreak has reached 12 trillion tomans, which is the second estimate and will definitely be higher in the next estimate.

Vali Teymouri, Deputy Minister of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts, said that the initial estimate of the damage was 3,300 billion tomans.

According to Mizan News Agency, he added that in the most optimistic scenario, tourism subsidiaries are currently operating with "one-third" of their workforce.

Mr. Teymouri stated that the number of people working in the travel and tourism sector, based on statistics from the World Travel and Tourism Council in 2019, was more than "one million and 350 thousand people."

This Iranian tourism official assessed the acceptance of the loan facility with an interest rate of "12 percent" by the sector's activists as "little", but said that 250 billion tomans in loans have been paid to them so far.

With the outbreak of the coronavirus in Iran, domestic travel and hotel stays have been drastically reduced, and the limited entry of foreign tourists into the country has also been minimized.

Source: Radio Farda