World Travel News

Three European photojournalists will travel to Iran in order to take photos of Iran’s tourist attractions in late November, the Persian service of the Cultural Heritage News (CHN) agency reported on Monday.

The travelers are from Spain, Switzerland and Germany and they intend to submit the photos to international news agencies and tourist companies.

“After making efforts to draw American and European visitors to Iran, we found that the lack of international publicity is the main obstacle in introducing Iran as a tourist hub worldwide,” the technical director of Gardeshgaran Travel Agency said.

Pointing to Turkey and the United Arab Emirate’s wide advertising at most airports in the United States and Europe, Mohammad Yazdanpanah said that there are lots of photos and posters of these countries so attractive to the passengers. Therefore, Iranian officials have decided to peruse foreign advertising seriously in the target countries.

Tourism TV commercials help all countries developed in tourism industry to the benefit of the sector.

Advertising has been so developed that in addition to television, radio and newspaper advertisings, it has been stretched into movies, serials, and documentary movies.

Therefore Iran, which is planning for attracting tourists to the country and developing its tourism industry, should pay a special and professional attention in advertising, especially TV commercials, believes Arab Tourism Channel (ATC) director, according to CHN.

Today tourism is one of the most important sources of income and creates job opportunities in countries.

In a talk with Mohsen Saffar, director of ATC, who recently visited Iran, CHN asked his opinion in this regard.

Saffar strongly believes that each industry needs to promote its features through advertising, and in today?s world the success of each industry is in close relations with advertising. Tourism as one of the most important industries of the 21st century needs long term plans in advertising. In this regard he explained, ?Different countries have divided tourism advertising in different sections.

One of them is holding exhibitions, there are some big exhibitions in different countries, among them we can refer to the World Travel Market (WTM), in Britain, and ITB in Germany, which are vast exhibitions sometimes visited by 20 to 30 million people.?

Iran has planned for an active participation in this year’s World Travel Market of London, 14-17 November 2005.

“Unlike the previous years, this year Iran is determined to introduce its tourism attractions and potentials to the visitors of the fair with the cooperation of both the private and public sectors in a 50 square meter pavilion, to flourish its tourism industry,” said Ebrahim Pourfaraj, head of Iran’s Tourleaders’ Association.

Pourfaraj explained that based on negotiations with some of the key tourism agencies of London, at the time of the exhibition, Iran’s tourism will be advertised and introduced in some of Britain’s mass media, paving the way to developing the tourism relations between the two countries.

Iran’s tourism attractions will be introduced to the visitors of the fair through CDs, catalogues, and screening Iranian historical attractions on advertising monitors. Besides the visitors of Iran’s pavilion will be welcomed in an Iranian-style traditional tearoom which is next to the pavilion. Performing live Iranian traditional music is one of the other programs of Iran’s pavilion, to make visitors more familiar with different aspects of Iran.

Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization of Iran will be responsible for the information desk of Iran’s pavilion in the exhibition, and will provide any information regarding to the rules and regulation of traveling to Iran to the visitors.

World Travel Market, the premier world travel industry event held at Excel in London’s Docklands in November 2005, is staged annually in London. It provides a unique opportunity for the whole global travel trade industry to meet, network, negotiate and conduct business.

Source: chn.ir

22 international lagoons of Iran with hundreds of thousands of birds, with a value of $20 bln, are one of the best ecotourism potentials of the country, the economy benefits of which have been neglected, said CHN.

The name of all 22 international lagoons of Iran, have been registered on Ramsar?s convention. One of the conditions for this registration is hospitality of at least 20,000 immigrate birds in a year.

Some exceptions, such as Hamoon lagoon, due to the drought of the previous year should be considered as well. Last year, 500,000 birds migrated to Miankaleh lagoon. There are also some other lagoons in Iran, which host migrating and local birds, but have not been registered yet on the list of Ramsar convention.

The convention for preserving the world?s lagoons, Ramsar convention, was signed in February 1971, with Iran hosting the event in Ramsar city. 138 countries have joined this international convention so far, and 1328 lagoons, 111 mln and 900,000 hectare vast, have been registered on the Ramsar convention list as international lagoons, among which 22 lagoons, one mln and 327,920 hectare vast, are located in Iran.

Iran?s unique cultural tourist attractions are to be advertised throughout the world, announced director of Iran?s Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (ICHTO), Esfandiar Rahim Mashayi, on World Tourism Day.

?Iran enjoys attractions that make the country a unique one, and based on previous attempts, we have put many plans on top of our list for the introduction of the capacities and potentials; we believe that to be present in the world market, we should start to advertise and provide information on an international level,? explained Mashayi, CHN said.