Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) organized an International Festival of Dushanbe, the ECO Tourism Capital, and International Forum on Agro-Tourism Development at Dushanbe, Tajikistan from 29 to 30 August 2021. Heads of tourism organizations of all the member states of ECO participated in this event in physical and virtual format. Aftab ur Rehman Rana, Managing Director of PTDC represented Pakistan in this high-level meeting and also made a presentation on the prospects of Agro-Tourism in Pakistan.
In his opening remarks, he said that he is confident that this international Forum on Agro-Tourism will highlight the importance of Agro-Tourism and provide us a great opportunity to learn from the experiences of each other about the development of Agro-Tourism which can play an important role in strengthening the rural economies of ECO member states. He said that this event will also help to build mutual cooperation and working relationship with each other to promote Agro-Tourism more pro-actively for the overall economic growth and employment generation at local, national, regional, and global levels.
In his presentation, he highlighted that Pakistan is mainly a rural country so has great potential for Agro-Tourism. He said that Agro-Tourism can contribute greatly to the socio-economic development of our rural areas which are otherwise neglected in the overall development agenda.
