TEHRAN- Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Handicrafts Minister Ali-Asghar Mounesan signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Sport and Youth Minister Masoud Soltanifar on Sunday to expand bilateral ties.

The MOU aims at quantitative and qualitative development of sports tourism both in national and international scales, maximum use of employment and entrepreneurship capacities among young people in the field of tourism, handicrafts, and traditional arts of the country, and providing the employees with equal opportunities.

Creating sustainable employment by attracting sports tourists, developing a service-oriented economy by involving federations and other sports institutions in sports tourism, developing and strengthening regional and international relations using the capacities of sports tourism, developing of branding of national sports events in Iran and the use of relevant capacities at international levels under the national brand of tourism are also among the most important goals of signing the memorandum.

Speaking on the sidelines of the signing ceremony, Mounesan said that there are many similarities between the two ministries, many of which seem to have been overlooked, and paying attention to them can help strengthen cooperation between the two ministries.

Referring to the diversity in the tourism sector, he said that various fields of tourism such as mining tourism, agritourism, ecotourism, and health tourism were created in recent years, and now sports tourism is also an important part of the tourism sector, which could generate more income and employment for the country by turning sports events into sports-tourism events.

Two important sectors that could create social vitality, as well as the development of social welfare, are the tourism sector and the sports sector, he added.

Soltanifar for his part said that the turnover in the sports events can provide a suitable basis for cooperation in the field of tourism, which can provide economic prosperity employment for the country.

Competitions and sporting events cause millions of tourists to travel to different countries each year, for instance an annual Olympic sporting event attracts tourists from 200 countries to the host country while the FIFA World Cup, Nations Cup, and the prestigious leagues of the world attracts the most tourists as well, he added.

He also noted that in addition to sports events, local and indigenous games are another capacity that can be effective in attracting tourists, given that this type of sports and games are very attractive to foreign tourists.

ABU/MG