Masoud Soltanifar, who was speaking in the ceremony of opening of Laleh of Bistoun International Hotel in Kermanshah held on Friday evening, said that the hotel had an excellent potential for international tourists; “the hotel will function as a cultural-historical and residential venue for tourists,” he added.
Vice-president said that Iran was one of the oldest civilizations in the planet; “estimations show that more than 800,000-1 million historical monuments are scattered across the Iranian historical territory; with a civilization tracing back to just before the last glacial period (11,000 years ago), Iran has been an influential country in the course of history, and the embodiment of the millennial civilization adorn different spots of the country,” Soltanifar asserted.
“The first legislation on registering historical monuments passed in 1930; during past 85 years, of a total of 150,000 monuments uncovered from under the soil, 31,300 monuments have been nationally registered; in some part of this 85-year period, the registering of monuments had been laid in abeyance; so far, 19 monuments have been registered in UNESCO World Heritage Site list, and currently, Iran pioneers the list with 60 monuments candidate of putting into the list,” he detailed.
Soltanifar told the ceremony that since 2007 culmination of the number of applications from around the world, UNESCO assigned only a single quota for each country; “with unclaimed quota remaining from the war years, we managed to register two historical monuments in the list,” he said.
“Of all nationally registered relics, roughly half (15,000) are localities and buildings; in fact, 1263 mosques, 176 churches, and 161 fire temples are in the list; a great challenge is the great Loot Desert in tourism industry, while it could potentially be a sustainable source of attraction of tourism and bring the boom of desert itineraries,” Soltanifar proposed.
“With full support by the government, Iran, coming out of debris of sanctions, would exploit the dire situation in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt to change the destination of many European tourists as an opportunity for tourism industry; with a cursory estimations, reconstruction of a single monuments would bring expenses as high as $1.5-3mn, while resources the Organization receives as its budget cover only 5 per cent of the requirements,” Soltanifar lamented.
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