 In October 2018, Ali Asghar Moonesan, the head of Iran's Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization (ICHTO), announced that the number of tourists who visited Iran in the first six months of the Iranian year (starting March 21) rose by 51 percent compared to the same period in 2017.The 2008 figures from the World Tourism Organization for the origin of visitors to Iran show that building up visitors from the Islamic and wider Asian world would have to start from a low base.Around three-quarters of those entering Iran in 1999 came from Europe.