News

September 27, 2021

Roundtable: Tourism and Sustainable Urban Resources with Collaboration

Urban Economy Forum in collaboration with International Institute for Peace through Tourism (IIPT) has hosted a roundtable on the topic of “Tourism and Sustainable Urban Resources” on the occasion of #WorldTourismDay where Reza Pourvaziry, Chair of Urban Economy Forum, had the honored of providing an opening speech.

“I welcome everyone here today for joining this important discussion and I thank speakers for sharing their valuable insights. I wish everyone a happy international tourism day. I appreciate our session co-organizers the International Institute for Peace through Tourism.

When defining sustainable urban resources, we must emphasis that all resources are included in our urban settlements. We must pay attention to the sources, chains and the outputs. Of course the sources is one of the most important concepts.

In recent decades, urban identity values are one of the sources of urban development that have attracted attention. 

The growing growth of tourism has created a fundamental role for the tourism industry in both the micro and macro economy. Which has affected all development programs and affects all foundations.

The impact of the pandemic on the economy and tourism: especially in the relative conditions of security, both health and economic as a necessary bedrock has been grave. For the past 2 years this global pandemic has impacted all different economic domains, with tourism as one of the industries most impacted. This has caused a number of challenges for economic development as the security of tourism is one of the main tools for countries and cities to build a sustainable economic foundation.

 The importance of this issue is discussed in 3 areas:

A- The economic cycle tourism produces activates the micro-economy in the city, tourism’s micro economy has spillover into other subsets of the economy thereby impacting the macro-economy, including influences on household economy. 

 B. It is significantly related to sustainable development because its resources depend on historical resources and civilized values, and basically, instead of destroying resources, the condition for survival is the preservation of those resources, so the concept of sustainability is rooted in it.

C- One of the characteristics of sustainable development is the issue of endogenousness that can create values from within. And because tourism is related to all resources and culture, especially spiritual and historical infrastructure it activates them, so it is endogenous and can be stable.

Finally, while tourism interacts with all areas of a country’s economy, it is most influential for the urban economy.

For Any type of industry, including tourism, each have special threats to sustainability within it, which highlights the necessity of creating a discourse around this concept so that we can better identify non-harms.

One of its clear effects is the increase in air travel, which has increased greenhouse gas emissions. We should not ignore these effects, as environmental activists are trying to warn of the dangers of these trips. Accordingly, it considers another approach to tourism

It is thought that in the future, green technology can find a solution to this issue. As we have said, one of the most interesting components in the human life model is tourism and the positive benefits for both an individual and societal, but on the other hand, we must consider and address the environmental and social effects.

An important advantage of tourism can be international interactions, which increase global understanding and pave the way for peace and friendship, which can have economic effects.

Thank everyone very much."

- Reza Pourvaziry, Chair of Urban Economy Forum