The First International Conference on Tourism and Handicrafts will be held from 13-15 of May 2006 in the seminar hall of Iranian National Broadcast in Tehran. This conference has been organized by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and Iran’s Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (ICHTO) in order to discuss the role of handicrafts in promoting tourism industry which will result in job creation and earning more currency through attracting more tourists. The main objectives of the Conference will be as follows: 1. Examining job creation, income generation, and poverty reduction opportunities in developing handicrafts and investigating ways to maximize these opportunities through the tourism-handicrafts link. Special attention will be paid to vulnerable sectors such as women, youth, and the physically disabled people. 2. Recognizing the importance of local handicrafts in tourism development and reciprocally the importance of tourism as an agent for the protection and preservation of traditional crafts, methods of production and cultural context. 3. Examining case studies of production and marketing practices of tourism related handicrafts and drawing lessons from them especially in relation to: production technologies and design aspects, financial and management aspects of production units, marketing channels and methods for optimizing the sale of handicrafts among tourists and the tourism industry. 4. Defining strategies and practical tools for governments and the private sector to strengthen the links between handicraft production and tourism, identifying the roles of the corresponding government developments of the local and incoming tourism industry and of external sources of finance and technical assistance. For more information, CLICK HERE.