TEHRAN—Close to 4.5 million tourists from target countries visited Iran during the first half of current Iranian year (March-September 2025), said Minister of Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Handicrafts Reza Salehi-Amiri.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Cabinet session which was held on Wednesday in presence of the journalists and reporters, he said: “In October and November, we returned to normal conditions before the 12-day Israeli war, and this favorable situation has begun again,” Mehr news agency reported.

He predicted that the country would witness rise in number of tourists by the end of this year compared to the last year.

Salehi-Amiri also said that the development of health tourism is one of the priorities of Tourism Ministry. 

“In this regard, a comprehensive medical tourism system has been designed in collaboration with member agencies, including the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Labor, the Social Security Organization, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and all relevant agencies, which will be unveiled in the near future.”

He noted: “Currently, we have over one million health tourists annually, and our assessment is to increase this number to two million people and earn 6 billion euros by the end of the Seventh National Development Plan.”

The minister said that with the measures taken in Khorasan Razavi, Khuzestan and the other provinces, the health tourism system has been organized.

Referring to his recent trip to Riyadh and meeting with 10 tourism ministers from different countries, he recalled: “According to the statements of the Minister of Tourism of Oman, this country received $100 million in health services from Iran last year. Our orientation is to expand health tourism to all regional countries.”

KD