Iran’s Cultural Heritage Ministry Invites Foreign Influencers to Iran to Prove the Country’s Security

The Ministry of Cultural Heritage invited foreign influencers to come to Iran to prove that Iran is a safe country.

The publication of photos and videos from Iran shared on social networks by foreign bloggers has generated extensive resonance in cyberspace. Given that many countries have warned their citizens to avoid unnecessary travel to Iran, the Islamic Republic government has extended a helping hand to adult film actors, models, and famous bloggers, claiming to develop tourism and counter Iranophobia.

Videos posted by several bloggers on social networks show their trips to Iran, in which they showcase tourist attractions, food, people, restaurants, and more to their followers. The common phrase among them is “everyone said Iran is not a safe place, but…”

This common phrase and the sharing of photos and videos on virtual platforms suggest that they were invited to Iran as part of an influencer campaign called “Iran Hello” in collaboration with the Ministry of Cultural Heritage. The content on all their pages shows travels to different countries around the world, with most of their trips to different countries also taking place at the invitation of those countries.

These invitations from different countries are the best way to develop the tourism industry of any country. Some of the invitees are professional photographers and some are bloggers. In the “Iran Hello” campaign, ten influencers have participated and are engaged in promoting Iran.

One of these influencers is a Russian woman named “Victoria” who speaks Farsi well. She has written that she is not Iranian but speaks Persian fluently. She has made three long trips to Iran and visited many cities. She shared multiple photos from the Russian Embassy about herself, with one of her videos receiving more views than others and making it to the Iranian explore page. This video begins with the phrase “they said Iran is not safe, but…” In this video, she filmed the Golestan Palace, restaurants, and homes in northern Tehran, which generated multiple reactions. Victoria spoke about the beauty of Iran in one of her videos and announced that Iran, like any other country, has its own problems. In another video, she also filmed herself wearing Islamic hijab and explained in Russian how hijab is observed in Iran.

The influencers invited for the “Iran Hello” campaign actually joined the campaign at the invitation of the travel services company Visit our Iran or “Visit Our Iran.” It is worth noting that the marketing and foreign tourism development office of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage has established contact with influencers through this travel services company.

The aforementioned company began its operations for foreign tourists in 2015 and has produced content about Iran’s beauty for them and provided conditions for their travel to Iran. In the first two months of the current year (1403), a total of 10 influencers in two groups from Switzerland, Cyprus, Singapore, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, England, the Netherlands, and Russia came to Iran, with a total audience of over 20 million people. Eight of them have begun producing content from their trips to Iran.

With the sharing of content produced by these influencers, it is expected that once all of them share their content, the overall reach could amount to 100 million people, a scale of audience diversity and multiplicity that the private sector has never brought into the country before.

This invitation is a new method by the Islamic Republic government to make the world understand that there are no problems in Iran with any ethnicity or religion, and that people can travel freely to Iran from different countries in complete security. However, many tourists who came to Iran in the past were arrested under the pretext of being spies, imprisoned for extended periods, and even subjected to torture.