From left to right: Saeed Dorali, Kalliopi Xinopoulou, Lysandros Tsilidis Τσιλίδης, Konstantinos Kourakos, Seyedeh Mojdeh Mousavi, Thekla Kammenou, Mehdi Shafiee Shakib, Ehsan Bakhshandeh, Alireza Nokhostin, Nikolas Kelaiditis and Katerina Karmpini

FedHATTA and the Iranian Tour Operators Association, ITOA, signed a cooperation agreement for the bilateral strengthening of tourism flows between Greece and Iran, on the sidelines of the 38^th international tourism exhibition Philoxenia, held in Thessaloniki November 10-12.

The Agreement was signed by the President of ITOA, Mostafa Shafiee Shakib, and the President of FedHATTA, Lysandros Tsilidis.

The two sides committed to make use of the communication channels of the two agencies in order to direct their efforts to promote inbound and outbound tourism from and to Greece and Iran respectively.

Both Mr. Tsilidis and Mr. Shakib confirmed the willingness of the two peoples to travel to Greece and Iran, stressing the desire of Iranian visitors to visit Greece and its cultural monuments.

The Agreement builds on the established cultural and tourism ties between the two countries, and follows discussions between the two agencies on issues of mutual promotion of the destinations to be visited in the two countries and also information to the tourism offices on issues related to travel. The aim of the discussions is to strengthen the level of mutual support of the involved bodies and to support tourism offices in both countries to develop greater focus on quality tourism.

As Mr. Tsilidis stated, “tourism is an international language known to everyone, regardless of nationality, and it has the ability to unite people from all over the world.”

FedHATTA initiated its cooperation with the Iranian tourist market in 2017, with the visit of Iranian travel agents to Athens, as well as a FedHATTA delegation to Iran, and continued with meetings with the Iranian Embassy in Athens as well as the Greek Embassy in Iran, regarding visa issues and similar issues to resolve.