Today, the fledging tourism industry is one of the fastest developing sectors of global economy, tourism considered as smokeless industry is counted as the 4th large industry of the world after fuel, chemicals and automobile industries. One of the reasons of tourism industry is its flexibility. During past years that global economy had a vague perspective and economic growth was fragile and it has experienced macro challenges, tourism has always had a growing trend. Rise of international tourism demand in the first five months of 2015 increased 4% and on the basis of World Tourism Organization, this amount has been positive for all areas. There have been more than 322 million international tourists from the beginning of 2015 to April increased 4.5% compared to the same period of last year. In 2014, international tourist’s arrivals were more than 1.5 billion people and according to the predictions it would reach to 1.8 billion people with annual growth of 3.3% by 2030. On the basis of this prediction, the destination of tourists would also change from developed countries to the emerging economies of Asia and Latin America, so that in 2030, 57% of total world tourism would be to the destination of these countries. Tourism, famous as invisible export, currently has devoted 9% of GDP, 6% 0f total export in the world valuing 1.5 trillion dollars and 30% of total export of service sector in the world to itself.

One of the reasons of encouraging tourism development in the world is its role in employment since many countries grappling with big crisis of unemployment. Currently, international tourism has created nearly 120 million direct jobs and 125 million indirect jobs and consequently in the related industries. It means that among 11 jobs in the world, one of them is related to the tourism industry and by 2022 among 10 employed people in the world, one of them works in the tourism sector. Currently, the Middle East absorbs 4% of total world tourism. Our country can be an attractive and sure destination because of having many tourism attractions. Iran has potential for active and effective presence in tourism industry in terms of geographical location, natural attractions, historical, cultural and religious to absorb tourists and according to the experts; it is among 10 top countries of the world regarding tourism potential. Capabilities of ecotourism, geo-tourism, and cultural tourism, religious tourism, medical, historical and urban are only parts of attractions of this country. But despite this, Iran is in the margin of the world tourism market and according to the World Tourism Organization in the field of tourism competition in 2013 among 140 countries, Iran has devoted rank 98 to itself and it has located among countries Guatemala, Suriname and Mongolia. On the basis of this report, Iran has been located in rank 11 among 15 countries and small countries such as UAE and Qatar were on the top of this ranking. Also, tourism sector is included only 2.4% of total GDP and 2.1 of total employment were in this sector which it is much lower than the global average. Therefore, we need more attention and macro investment in this sector in order to employ young work forces via world tourism. As World Tourism Organization has predicted that among 66million jobs that would be created in tourism industry during next 10 years, 62% of it is related to the Asia Pacific region, and in 201, 48% of total jobs of tourism sector was in China and India. Based on this interpretation, due to the volatility of oil prices in global markets because of mainly political reasons and also recession of the agricultural sector due to climate fluctuations and frequent droughts, Iran can and should use tourism industry as a secure replace to oil and gas sales for sustainable economic growth, as Lewis Turner, researcher in this filed considers international tourism as the most promising, most complicated and suitable alternate industry that developed countries can have it. On the other hand, entry and exit of tourists not only it can bring revenue and foreign exchange into the country, it can help to redistribute of wealth at global scale in the today’s globalized economy and facilitate entry to the global road. Globalization in the tourist arena emphasizes on this principle that host communities want to maintain its identity, culture, social values and environmental capital and in addition to tourists’ satisfaction, these principles be respected. In this regard, adopting strategic policies for maintaining fundamentals of cultural and religious principles should be considered in our country in order to both maintain customs and cultural and social traditions, and economic sustainable development is achieved.

Source: Iran newspaper

Date : September 17, 2015

News Code : 6030