Tourist Guide Day in IRAN, 2013

The 6^th world tourist guide day celebration was hosted by Urmia, West Azerbaijan province, from 18^th to 20^th February by the presence of 600 tourist guides, university students and professors, environment experts and reporters. The ceremony was held under the theme of “tourist guide, the guardian of natural resources, the supporter of sustainable energy” in harmony with the theme of UNWTO for 2012 “tourism and sustainable energy”.

The event was started by the visit of Lake Urmia and the site of Kazem Dashi. On the second day, the guests visited other natural and historic sites including Nazloo River, Sahoolan Cave and Urartian Castle. Also, 11 workshops in different subjects were held for developing knowledge of tourist guides. It is good to be mentioned that one of the workshops was taught in English about tourism and sustainable development by Mr. Marcello Notarianni, Senior Sustainable Tourism Consultant in UNWTO.

Holding news meeting by the presence of reporters, tourism professors and environment experts and presenting a specialized panel about sustainable development in tourism and also the establishment of “Iran Tourist Guides Federation” with membership of 12 associations were other achievements of ceremony on the second day.

The ending like last years was started at 9:57 a.m. to emphasize the punctuality of tourist guides. Dr. Ismael Kahrom, the university professor and ornithologist was the special guest that his lecture about Lake Urmia and environment provoked the audiences’ emotions. This year, two tourist guides drew Lake Urmia on a t-shirt and registered the signature of all participants on it and gave it to Dr. Kahrom as a gift. This symbolic work differentiated this ceremony from others.