Fars set to launch new tourism platform
The director general of Fars Province’s Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Organization has announced the imminent launch of a tourism platform for the province, saying the new platform will help tourists discover diverse and sometimes lesser-known routes across six areas of tourism: historical, natural, cultural, religious, health and sports.
Behzad Moridi said the Fars tourism platform is ready and will likely be made available to the public in early September once several technical issues are resolved, according to IRNA.
He said the platform is different from similar services previously available, adding that its main mission is to define multiple tourism routes and corridors across the six sectors.
“These six areas have been expanded, and within each one, multiple tourism routes have been introduced to the public,” Moridi said.
He explained that the cultural tourism section includes literary, artistic, event, food and clothing tourism, reflecting an anthropological and ethnographic approach. It introduces numerous routes in Shiraz and other cities across Fars and provides visitors with guidance on how to explore them.
The historical tourism section, he added, guides tourists to historical sites and routes across the province, including the Achaemenid Route, Sassanid Route and Southern Civilization Route.
The section also includes museum tours and historic-fabric tours, with multiple routes mapped for exploring the historic districts of Shiraz and other cities in Fars.
Referring to the status of Fars Province and Shiraz as the third major shrine destination of the Ahl al-Bayt in Iran’s religious tourism, Moridi said pilgrimage routes to revered Imamzadehs have also been mapped.
“We are currently defining multiple routes that would be worthy of and befitting the name of Fars and Shiraz,” he added.
Commenting on a proposal to select Hafezieh and Sa’dieh in Shiraz as pilot sites for board-based management of heritage attractions, Moridi said he wanted to offer “an internal critique within the discourse.”
He said public and multifaceted participation is inherently valuable and that association-based and council-style management can, by its nature, contribute to development.
“However, as many experts have emphasized, it is the way this work is carried out that raises concerns,” he said. “Many of the problems that previously existed in association-based and board-of-trustee structures could become challenging if the implementation of this approach is accelerated.”
The official said tourism in Shiraz could move beyond merely a verbal interpretation or even a lived experience toward a deeper search for meaning.
“Few people have visited Shiraz without experiencing the city or walking through Hafezieh, Sa’dieh, the holy shrine of Shah Cheragh or Eram Garden,” Moridi said. “But with the help of the media, the city can also unlock other layers of tourism.”
“Our tourism approach is moving toward meaning-oriented tourism and, subsequently, toward transcendence,” he said. “No robot will ever be capable of accessing or experiencing this layer of tourism.”