Eurasia Press & News
Iran and Sri Lanka Wednesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to promote their tourism relations. The MoU was signed in the presence of the president of Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handicraft and Tourism Organization (ICHHTO), Sri Lanka’s minister of tourism, as well as deputies of tourism industry of both countries at Tehran’s Laleh Hotel.
Based on this agreement, the governments are in charge of developing the tourism policies for promoting tourism relations between the two countries, and the private sector should bring them into force.
Pointing to the high potential of the both countries for promoting their tourism industry and their tourism relations, Esfandiar Rahim Mashayi, president of ICHHTO said, “Giving more attention to this issue will increase the responsibility of authorities toward the case. All people need to promote their relations with the other nations and the best approach for creating a sustainable peace in the world is to promote the relation of nations based on a world management.”
He further explained that one of the main aims of the both countries is to prepare the ground for introducing their real face to the world. “Promoting relations between the two nations will support relations between the two countries’ governments and can be a start to the implementation of items which have been ratified in the tourism MoU,” added Mashayi.
According to the president of ICHHTO, implementing appropriate advertising measures, interactions between media experts of the two countries, and using all potentials of the two countries will be the main achievements of this contract.
In this meeting, Milinda Moragoda, Sri Lanka’s minister of tourism, also expressed satisfaction with the participation of the private sector in promoting the two sides’ tourism relations.
“Although there are a lot differences between the two countries, Iran is a big and Sri Lanka is a small country, but they have a lot in common. With forming the tourism committee between the two countries, we do hope to witness that the items of this memorandum of understanding come into force in a near future,” said Moragoda.
Sri Lanka’s minister of tourism further explained about the tourism industry in his country. “Sri Lanka is a small country with 20 million populations; however, we have succeeded to increase the tourism potentials of our country. In terms of national income, tourism industry ranks third or fourth in Sri Lanka and we are trying to make it the first. We have also succeeded in promoting our ecotourism industry for lovers of nature,” added Moragoda.
Based on the item no. 7 of this memorandum of understanding, Iran and Sri Lanka will also prepare the ground for interaction between scientific and researching tourism centers of the two countries.
