In early spring, the streets of Van, a border city in eastern Turkiye, usually buzz with Persian accents. Iranian families stroll past shop windows, couples linger in lakeside cafes, and tour boats drift across the sparkling waters of Lake Van, the country’s largest lake.
In recent years, hundreds of thousands of Iranians have made their way to Van annually for short holidays, shopping sprees, and seasonal getaways, with early spring marking the peak season.
To cater to Iranian visitors, Persian signs now line the city’s main streets. Retailers adjust prices and product selections to match Iranian tastes, while hotels, restaurants, and transport services have expanded rapidly to keep up with growing demand.
“Tourism and border trade are of vital importance for Van,” said Necdet Takva, president of the Van Chamber of Commerce and Industry, noting that the latest figures show the number of Iranian visitors to the city has surpassed 800,000 in a single year.
But in the past two weeks, a tense quiet has settled over the border city.
On Feb 28, the United States and Israel launched sudden strikes on Iran, prompting widespread Iranian retaliation across the region.
As the regional conflict intensifies, Van, a city whose economic recovery has long depended on cross-border tourism, is increasingly bearing the brunt of its fallout.
These days, Iranian visitors are barely seen on the streets of Van. “We were expecting one million Iranian tourists for 2026,” Takva noted. “But under the current circumstances, this will not materialise.”
Van shares a 285km border with Iran, forming part of the roughly 530km frontier between the two countries.
“There may not be limitations on tariff-based trade in goods, but daily border trade has been seriously affected,” Takva said. “Commerce and tourism revenues are expected to drop by hundreds of millions of US dollars,” according to the business leader.
The timing of the conflict has left Van’s tourism sector even more on edge. Nowruz, the Persian New Year holiday in March, is usually a peak season when hotels are booked to the rafters, as Iranian visitors flock to the city to ring in the New Year abroad.
This year, however, reservations are thinning.
“In normal years, we would be preparing for near full occupancy during Nowruz,” Oktay Aksoy, general manager of the five-star Elite World Van Hotel, said. “This year, we see a sudden stop in arrivals. Guests are postponing their plans.”
Iranian visitors typically stay several nights and spend across a wide range of sectors, from hotels and restaurants to clothing and electronics stores. Even a short-term disruption, Aksoy noted, sends ripples through the wider urban economy.
“If uncertainty continues, it will affect not only this season but also future investment decisions,” the hotelier pointed out.
Over the past decade, local investors have expanded their businesses in Van, assuming stable bilateral relations and relatively smooth border crossings between Turkiye and Iran.
That assumption is now being put to the test, particularly after Turkiye’s Ministry of National Defence claimed recently that a ballistic missile fired from Iran toward Turkish airspace was intercepted by NATO air and missile defence systems over the eastern Mediterranean.
Although Iran denied launching any missile at Turkiye, the incident has nonetheless stirred unease in Ankara. (A second incident reportedly took place on March 9, but again was intercepted by NATO.)
Local business leaders say they are closely monitoring diplomatic developments and hope de-escalation efforts will restore predictability before the summer season.
“If the war drags on, every tourist and trade opportunity that Van has worked so hard to build will be at risk,” said Takva.
For now, shopkeepers wait, hotel managers revise their forecasts, and the boats on Lake Van continue their slow circuits, carrying fewer passengers than usual as uncertainty looms over Turkiye’s eastern frontier. – Xinhua
