TEHRAN—Mining tourism in Zanjan needs more investment, the provincial tourism chief has said.

There is a great deal of potential for boosting mining tourism in this province, which needs more investment, Seyyed Saeid Safavi explained on Saturday.

The province’s tourism directorate has made efforts to attract investors from the private sector, the official added.

A leading mining tourism attraction in the province is the Anguran zinc and lead mine, which could be the focal point of the investors, he noted.

Providing the necessary fields and developing mining tourism can lead to dynamic employment and high returns in this sector, he mentioned.

However, accommodation and hospitality infrastructure need to be developed in the area, he stated.

Located 130 kilometers west of the provincial capital of Zanjan, Anguran mine is considered the largest lead and zinc mine in West Asia and is one of the few active mines in the country.

About 500 miners work in different sections of Anguran mine, which date back to 1922.

In 2020, Iran started to promote mining tourism by launching the first project in the Anguran lead and zinc mine.

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