The agreement had been arranged during Lorencin's recent visit to Iran and was signed on the margins of a meeting of the Executive Council of the World Tourism Organisation in the northern Croatian Adriatic resort town of Rovinj. Soltanifar and Lorencin have met several times in the past few months.
We have a lot of opportunities for cooperation with Iran in tourism, and by signing this agreement we have actually reactivated the 2003 memorandum of cooperation with that country. Definition of specific activities now follows, Lorencin said.
Soltanifar, who also serves as Vice-President of Iran's Cultural Heritage, Handcrafts and Tourism Organisation, said that he saw a good partner in Croatia because it was developing its tourism industry successfully and could help Iran with its own experience in that regard.
Our plan is to increase the number of foreign tourists to Iran by 2025 from the present 4-5 million to about 20 million, which will require construction of a lot of facilities, such as hotels, and other infrastructure, including airports. We are inviting the Croatian private and public sectors to come and work in Iran, Soltanifar said.
He said that Iran had great potential for tourism development, which has been delayed by international sanctions imposed on the country. Iran now expects the sanctions to be lifted, and Soltanifar said that the country would work on improving accommodation facilities and easing the visa regime to facilitate visits to the country.
Croatia's former ambassador to Iran and chairman of the Croatian-Iranian Friendship Society, Esad Prohic, told reporters that the sanctions were expected to be lifted on July 1, after which Iran would focus on opening to the global tourist market.
That will also be an opportunity for Croatian people and entrepreneurs to travel more and possibly do business with that country, Prohic said, adding that between 5,000 and 10,000 Croatians visit Iran annually.
Miroslav Dragicevic of the Horwath HTL consulting firm said that Iran planned to invest tens of billions of US dollars in its tourism and infrastructure over the next ten years.