ANKARA
Established by the leadership of Turkey, Developing-8 (D-8) will prepare a 10-year roadmap to receive more share from the world's tourism.
The second D-8 meeting on Tourism Cooperation was held in Iranian capital Tehran, organized by the Iranian Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (ICHTO) and was attended by representatives of D-8 member countries Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia, Egypt and Nigeria and also representatives from private sectors.
Speaking at the two-day-long meeting, D-8 Secretary General Seyed Ali Mohammad Mousavi said that from the tourism potential point of view, D-8 countries became an important sector of the world economy.
Mousavi highlighted that despite the global recession and political changes in the member countries, in 2012 D-8 received more than 75 million international tourists and D-8 countries shared 8% of the world tourism in terms of international tourism arrivals and also in terms of international tourism receipts.
It was noted in the D-8 statement that the participants of the meeting also reviewed and discussed the progress achieved in the implementation of the resolutions and decisions of previous D-8 Tourism Cooperation meeting. "During the general debate, the following issues have been raised: the facilitation of tourist visa arrangements, the role of the private sector in tourism development, increasing total arrivals, income and accommodation services, role of SMEs in tourism, eco-tourism, health tourism, the development of tourism as an important tool for poverty alleviation, and the promotion of ecotourism, health tourism and regional tourism projects in D-8 countries", said the statement.
Meeting attendees discussed and adopted proposals and recommendations for promoting the field of D-8 tourism cooperation such as feasibility of D-8 Tourism Fund, Facilitation of Visa Issuance, establishing a Working Group to prepare a 10-year Roadmap, noted D-8.
D-8, an organization for development of cooperation among the following countries Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria and Pakistan, was set up in 1997 under the leadership of Turkey.
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