Talking to IRNA in Berlin on the sidelines of the 43rd ITB Berlin Tourism Fair on Friday, the director of the Orient Express Travel Agency, Hartmut Niemann said, "There is a much stronger demand for Germans to travel to Iran than last year."

"We hope this trend will continue this fall," he added.

Other German tour operators had also reported a major increase in the number of tourists visiting Iran last year, according to press reports.

The Munich-based Studiosus Reisen Travel Agency which is the largest tour operator of culture and nature special interest group tours in Germany, said Iran had become one of the top destinations for German tourists in the Middle East in 2008.

Studiosus which is in charge of the travel arrangements of 101,800 tourists every year, reported earlier a stunning 91 percent surge in the number of tourists traveling to Iran.

Meanwhile, Niemann said Iranian tourism was less affected by the global financial and economic crisis since it was not a destination for mass tourism like Turkey or Dubai.

"One could say Iran may actually benefit from the economic crisis in the long-run," the travel expert said.

He pointed to major progress in Iran's tourist sector since 2001.

Niemann urged Iran's tourist industry to boost advertising abroad and to open tourism bureaus in major German cities.

He welcomed Iran's move to issue 14-day visas at airports, border crossings and sea ports.

The travel agent hailed also Iran's decision to remove the need for foreign tourists to pay with US dollars for their hotel rooms which had been viewed as discriminatory by many tourists.