TEHRAN—Tehran’s Mosalla will be hosting a meeting on mining tourism on Tuesday, Tehran’s deputy tourism chief has said.

The event, which will be held on the sidelines of the 11th International Investment Opportunities in Iran Mines & Mining Industries Exhibition & Conference, will explore Iran’s mining tourism potential, Ali Rafiei explained on Sunday.

Ways to revive abandoned mines across the country and turn them into tourist destinations will also be discussed during the meeting, the official added.

In 2020, Iran started to promote mining tourism by launching the first project in the Anguran lead and zinc mine, located 130 kilometers west of the northwestern city of Zanjan.

Mining tourism is a type of adventure tourism that has gained many fans around the world. Because of the interest of tourists in this category, mining tourism has become one of the most interesting forms of tourism in the world for some time, and it has also been proposed as a way of developing old industrial areas.

The mines can be included in a tourism package in different regions where tourist arrivals can have a positive effect on the local economy. Because of these potentials, they can help create sustainable development, job creation, and poverty reduction in more remote areas of the country and prevent environmental, social, and economic damage in local communities.

In recent years, Iran has developed new programs for tourism development in different branches of the industry including agritourism, which is a subset of a larger industry called rural tourism that includes resorts, off-site farmers' markets, non-profit agricultural tours, and other leisure and hospitality businesses that attract visitors to the countryside.

ABU/AM