The past few weeks have been a tough time for our business. As most people are aware, after Trump tried to ban visitors from six Muslim countries, one of which was Iran, the Iranians decided to reciprocate in like fashion.
Little did we suspect that we would be so directly affected by the surprise election of Trump to the White House. We have had to cancel several tours and refund deposits. Our business was limited to foreign tourists, like a group from Poland that will be leaving for Iran very shortly.
But since the bulk of our business has been American tourists going to Iran things have been very slow for us for the past few weeks. The Trump ban on Muslim visitors and tourists from 6 countries, which he claims is not a Muslim ban, has been set aside, at least for the time being, by American judges in several states. It is still not clear what will eventually happen. It was never very clear why these 6 countries were chosen. When was the last time an Iranian caused damage to American life or property on American soil (or elsewhere for that matter)? One would have thought that certainly Saudi Arabia would have included in the ban, since most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi. But no, this did not happen. Cynical people might think that because Trump has business interests in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries that escaped the ban this might have been taken into account in deciding who gets banned and who doesn’t. Of course, others, less cynical, might find it hard to believe that Trump would allow personal business interests to influence his behavior as President.
But in the small world of American tourism to Iran we are hoping that things will begin to look up.
So we are putting the word out – any Americans who want to visit Iran should start making plans to go now. Iran remains one of the safest countries in the world for American tourists and one in which Americans are extremely popular on a personal basis, even if our President is less so .