Selection of the Country's Best Villages to Participate in the 2025 Global Competition
The Director General of the Office for Domestic Tourism Development of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Handicrafts announced the commencement of the process to select the country's 8 top villages to participate in the UN – Tourism global competition in 2025. ... Kerman Province, Fahraj village in Yazd Province, Palangan village in Kurdistan Province, Esfehak village in South Khorasan Province, and Qaleh Bala village in Semnan Province...
According to MirasArja and the Public Relations and Information Center of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Handicrafts, Seyed Mostafa Fatemi Firoozabadi, present at the National Rural Tourism Table, which was formed with the participation of relevant government agencies including the Organization of Municipalities and Rural Municipalities, the Vice Presidency, the Housing Foundation, the Alavi Foundation, and other members from the private sector and provincial general departments at the Tourism Vice Presidency, stated that the main goal of the current gathering is to strive for the selection of the country's best villages to participate in the 2025 global competition.
He added that based on research conducted by the General Department of Tourism Studies, Education, and Planning in collaboration with Tehran University, a list of over 150 villages has been selected and introduced to obtain provincial opinions and complete the relevant forms for global village indicators.
Fatemi noted that the initial 150 selected villages will be refined at the National Rural Tourism Table, and the number of villages will be reduced to approximately 50 based on the scores they receive.
According to the Director General of the Office for Domestic Tourism Development, after site visits and scoring by experts from the Office for Domestic Tourism Development, 10 villages will be selected for file completion based on the indicators of the World Tourism Organization, and the rest will be placed on the candidate list for registration to be addressed in future years.
Fatemi added that concurrently with these actions, infrastructural, restoration, conservation, and similar activities will be carried out to improve indicators in 50 villages. The member agencies of the National Rural Tourism Table have also committed to continuous cooperation for the selected candidates, similar to this meeting where each has tasks to witness the improvement of indicators in the coming years.
The Director General of the Office for Domestic Tourism Development continued that the registration process proceeds such that out of the 10 final files to be formed, 8 files will be sent to the United Nations World Tourism Organization. This process will be similar to the 2024 competition, the results of which will be announced in November 2024.
However, the files for the 2025 global villages, the selection process for which is underway at the National Tourism Table, will be sent to the United Nations World Tourism Organization in May 2025.
It is worth mentioning that the villages of Abyaneh in Isfahan Province, Kandelous in Mazandaran Province, Bisheh in Lorestan Province, Mimand in Kerman Province, Fahraj in Yazd Province, Palangan in Kurdistan Province, Esfehak in South Khorasan Province, and Qaleh Bala in Semnan Province have been selected for the 2024 global competition and sent to the United Nations World Tourism Organization.