Bahá’í require permission to visit the Holy Land?

[pne]

I was a bit surprised to find that Bahá’í require permission from their religious authorities (the Universal House of Justice) to visit the Holy Land (regardless of whether the purpose of the visit is a pilgrimage to Bahá’í holy sites or some other reason, e.g. business trips or visiting relatives or friends). I wonder what the rationale is behind that.

That page is also the first I heard about a “Bahá’í identification number”. I mean, LDS have membership numbers, but they seem to be pretty restricted to internal record-keeping: something for paper-pushers rather than something members are expected to know and use, as “identification number” implies to me.