(MENAFN- Pajhwok Afghan News)
KABUL (Pajhwok): More than 1,000 foreign tourists visited the natural beauty and historic sites of Afghanistan in the past three months, an official said on Wednesday.
Mawlavi Syed Mohammad Saeed, head of the Tourism Department in the Ministry of Information and Cultural Affairs, during an exclusive interview told Pajhwok Afghan News facts and figures from this year and the past two years showed that the number of foreign tourists had increased.
He said tourists from China, Japan, Germany and the USA visited natural sites in Afghanistan. Promotion in tourism industry helped generate three million afs revenue and work opportunities for as many as 3,000 people, he added.
According to the source the previous solar year 1400, a total 691 foreign tourists, last year over 2,000 and during the past three months of ongoing solar year nearly 1,000 foreign tourists visited historic and naturally attractive sites in Afghanistan.
In year 1400, over 700,000 afs, last year nearly six million afs and so far this year 600,000 afs local tourists have visited different areas and historic sites inside the country.
Mawlavi Syed Mohammad said:“Afghanistan having natural parks, historic places and natural beauty sites was an attractive destination for tourism in the world.”
He said the Nuristan National Park, Zazi Aryub district, Khost province and Band-i-Amir in Bamyan were the most attractive natural sites where a large number of tourists throng.
He said most tourists visited historic sites and national parks during spring and summer.
“During the past regime there were security threats local tourists could not move from one village to another but now tourism had improved and people could travel to every part of the country,” he said.
Referring to the surge in the number of tourist he said the move helped improved revenue and generated jobs for people.
In 1400, over 15.4 million afs revenue generated, last year 45 million afs revenue generated and during the ongoing three months nearly three million afs revenue had generated from the tourism sector.
The previous year tourism industry helped generated jobs for 9,096 persons, last year for over 61,000 persons and sofar this year over 3,000 people got work opportunities.
He said foreign tourists had been offered special facilities so that they could visit different areas of Afghanistan.
He said tourist companies have certain facilities such as translator, assistant, transport and living facilities.
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