Kerman, Iran to host food festival and ECO tourism meeting

Pars Today – Kerman Province in southern Iran has been officially selected to host the “6th International Food Festival” and the “2nd specialized meeting of the ECO Silk Road Tourism Working Group.”

The events will be organized under the framework of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO).

According to Pars Today, citing ILNA, the Director-General of Foreign Tourism Marketing and Development Office of Iran announced that Kerman Province has secured the hosting rights with the highest technical evaluation score.

Moslem Shojaei said the selection was made after technical review of proposals from five candidate provinces and based on precise hosting criteria.

Shojaei said that transparency and compliance with international standards were the main priorities in selecting the host.

He noted that the hosting call was sent to eligible provinces, and five provinces — Kerman Province, Ardebil Province, Mashhad, Hamedan, and Isfahan — entered the evaluation stage.

He added that the evaluation committee assessed applications based on 12 key criteria, including the quality of the feasibility proposal, the level of provincial financial participation, creativity in planning, projection of side events, and the bilingual presentation of plans.

Shojaei stated that in this highly competitive process, the province of Kerman achieved 11.5 points out of a possible 12 and was selected as the final host.

He highlighted that, in addition to presenting a detailed and creative proposal, the strongest point of the Kerman file was the official letter of support from the provincial governor and the guarantee of the highest level of financial and executive participation.

Tourism opportunities in Kerman

Shojaei emphasized that hosting the ECO Silk Road events provides a unique opportunity to showcase Iran’s food tourism potential and its tangible and intangible heritage to member countries.

The region’s registration of historical caravanserais and the Lut Desert on the UNESCO World Heritage list, along with its rich historical background along the ancient Silk Road route, give the area strong potential to successfully host the event and strengthen Iran’s tourism brand in the region.

The exact date of the event will be announced later by the Foreign Tourism Marketing and Development Office and the Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Organization of Kerman.