ECO Reviews “ECO Tourism Capital Selection Criteria”
Tehran – October 28 2024
The Economic Cooperation Organization convened a virtual meeting to discuss updates to the selection criteria for the prestigious “ECO Tourism Capital” initiative, which annually highlights a city from ECO Member States for its historical, cultural, and tourism potential. The meeting was attended by the representatives of the tourism authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the Republic of Türkiye and the Republic of Uzbekistan and was chaired by the ECO Secretariat.
Mr. Jasur Rajabov, Director for Tourism at the ECO Secretariat, while opening the meeting, emphasized the initiative’s alignment with the goals of ECO Vision 2025 for sustainable development and enhanced regional integration through tourism. The delegates then assessed each criterion, focusing on the alignment of the initiative with ECO’s values of heritage preservation, inclusivity, and sustainable tourism practices.
Introduced in 2019, the ECO Tourism Capital initiative aims to celebrate the cultural heritage and natural beauty of cities within the ECO region. Each year, a selected city will receive the ECO Tourism Capital designation, providing it with regional visibility and opportunities to attract tourism-related investment, strengthen local economies, and improve infrastructure. Currently city of Shahrisabz in Uzbekistan holds the title which will be taken over by city of Erzurum in Türkiye in 2025.
City of Erzurum Prepares for Designation of the ECO Tourism Capital 2025
Tehran – October 9, 2024
On 9 October 2024, a virtual consultative meeting was held to advance Erzurum’s preparation as the ECO Tourism Capital for 2025. Key representatives from the ECO Secretariat, Turkish officials and local stakeholders attended the meeting, which focused on the upcoming celebration activities.
Opening the meeting, ECO Deputy Secretary General Ambassador Jandos Asanov highlighted that the initiative to select cities from the region as the ECO Tourism Capitals has become a well-known tradition of the organization, and the events planned for next year in Erzurum, including next ECO Ministerial Meeting on Tourism will help showcase the city’s rich cultural heritage, historical significance and untapped tourism potential. Mr. Muharrem Çığlık, coordinator of the Erzurum events, outlined a series of activities leading up to the main event in April 2025, when Erzurum will be officially declared the ECO Tourism Capital, in the presence of H.E. President of the Republic of Türkiye and notable representatives from the ECO Member States.
Representatives of the Turkish authorities involved, including the Ministry of Tourism and Culture of the Republic of Turkiye, the Erzurum Governor’s Office, the Erzurum Metropolitan Municipality and the universities based in Erzurum, expressed their strong support for the initiatives to promote the city. In conclusion, Ambassador Asanov thanked Mr Çığlık and urged the Turkish side to provide the Secretariat with timely planning updates for the smooth running of the events to promote tourism in Erzurum.
Visa Facilitation in ECO Member States Supports the Regional Tourism Growth
Tehran – October 23 2024
A pivotal ECO High Level Experts Meeting on Visa Facilitation was held in virtual mode, with representatives from the ECO Member States including Iran, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Türkiye, and Uzbekistan. The meeting underscored the critical need for enhanced travel facilitation and seamless connectivity throughout the ECO region, essential for bolstering tourism as prioritized in the ECO Vision 2025.
The meeting deliberated on the visa regimes among the Member States and discussed recent initiatives undertaken by Member States to streamline tourism visas. The participants also exchanged views on development of new common visa applications which could help to further promote tourism in the region. It was agreed that the Member States will continue to provide up-to-date information on tourism visas through regular meetings.
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This website was developed by the ECO Secretariat under the proect wih the title of “Development of ECO Tourism Website” and numbered T/WebsiteSSP/2021. Main goal of creation of this website is to design a user-friendly specialized ECO Tourism website as a regional tool for sharing and consolidating tourism-related information and generating business and investment opportunities for the private sector in ECO Member States for easy access to information on tourism offerings, programmes and events in ECO Member States and promotion of the region.
The portal will complement the national tourism websites by allowing a more systematic process for users to collect and view the information they are looking for.
The website has been co-designed by the Tourism Directorate and the IT Section of the ECO Secretariat for use by the tourists and the tourism professionals and agencies. The content of the website is compiled from information and documents received from the ECO Member States through diplomatic channels and their national tourism promotion portals. The ECO Secretariat is in preparation of establishing a mechanism for updating the information on the website and, as far as possible, no content other than the information and documents available in the official channels of the Member States will be hosted on this website.
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5TH ECO MINISTERIAL MEETING ON TOURISM
ECO Tourism Ministerial Meetings are high-level meetings organized with the participation of the highest level government officials responsible for tourism in ECO Member States in order to guide ECO’s work in the field of tourism. The 5th and latest ECO Tourism Ministers’ Meeting was organized in Ardabil, Iran on October 5, 2023. The Ministers and high level representatives from the Member States, as well as the ECO Secretary General attended the meeting. The D-8 Secretary General Ambassador Isiaka Abdulqadir was invited to the event by the host country as a special guest.
The meeting was chaired by H.E. Mr. Ezzatollah Zarghami, Minister Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Honourable Minister, while welcoming the participants, stated that the ECO Member States should utilize their capacities in order to foster peace and solidarity, integration and regional cooperation in the areas of transportation, energy, trade and tourism. Honourable Minister emphasized that tourism industry had been acting as one of fast-growing economic sectors and had been the most significant pioneers of the economic growth in the world during recent years. Having national beauty, ethnic diversity, miscellaneous traditions and historical and cultural heritage, the ECO region has the potential to become a leading tourism destination in the world. In this context, he also highlighted the importance of the protection of the environment and cultural heritage sites.
The Minister expressed gratitude to the ECO Member States for selecting Ardabil as the ECO Tourism Capital for the year 2023, and noted that hosting current meeting in Ardabil is one of the significant consequences of the celebrations.
Addressing the meeting, the ECO Secretary General Ambassador Khusrav Noziri emphasized the importance of meeting to review the implementation of status of the agreements concluded during the 4th Ministerial Meeting on Tourism, along with revisiting tasks and activities defined within the Samarkand Declaration. He stressed that this Ministerial Forum is a significant event in terms of development and implementation of joint tourism projects and programs. The Secretary General further stated that the Ardabil Declaration would facilitate smooth execution of ECO’s policy based and action-oriented programs for ensuring regional activities at pre-pandemic level.
In addition, Ambassador Noziri mentioned that ECO is pursuing its cooperative relations with other regional and international tourism stakeholders and noted 25th Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations World Tourism Organization to be held in Samarkand, Uzbekistan on October 16-20, 2023. He added that this event would provide opportunities for collaboration in tourism sector and increase of the visibility of the ECO region.
During the meeting, heads of delegations from the ECO Member Countries delivered their statements, summarizing their national policies and ongoing tourism programs as well as engagements with regard to the promotion of tourism sector.
The meeting adopted the Ardabil Declaration outlining the areas for possible cooperation in tourism sector, and selected the city of Shusha in the Republic of Azerbaijan as the ECO Tourism Capital for 2026.
ARDABIL DECLARATION
