The Second Coordination Committee Meeting on the implementation of the “Framework for Development and Cooperation in the Domain of Tourism between the OIC Member States” was held in Antalya, Republic of Turkey, on 24-25 March 2010. The Meeting was attended by the representatives of the following Members of the Committee: Azerbaijan, Cameroon, Egypt, Iran, Malaysia, Senegal, Syria and Turkey. The representatives of the OIC General Secretariat and those of the following OIC institutions also attended the Meeting: SESRIC, IRCICA, ICDT, IUT, ISESCO, ICCI and COMCEC Coordination Office (CCO). Mr. Nabil Dabour, Director of Research Department represented SESRIC at the Meeting.

At the opening session, the representative of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Turkey, as Chairman of the 2nd Tourism Coordination Committee, made a statement in which he welcomed the participants and emphasised the need for enhancing tourism investments, education and marketing in OIC Member States. In this respect, he underlined the importance of the “Framework for Development and Cooperation in the Domain of Tourism between the OIC Member States”.

The representative of the Ministry of Tourism of the Syrian Arab Republic, as Chairman of the 6th Islamic Conference of Tourism Ministers (ICTM), also made a statement at the opening session in which he expressed his deep gratitude to the Government of the Republic of Turkey for organizing this meeting and to the OIC General Secretariat for following up the efforts for enhancing OIC cooperation in this important sector. He mentioned that while the global financial crisis has negatively affected the tourism sector in many countries around the world, tourism in many OIC member countries showed a positive performance, and this was due to the increasing number of intra-OIC tourist arrivals in many member countries.

On behalf of H.E. Prof. Ekmeleddin IHSANOGLU, the Secretary General of the OIC, the representative of the General Secretariat of the OIC expressed his deep gratitude to the Government and people of the Republic of Turkey for the hosting and successful organization of the Meeting. He mentioned that the aim of this Meeting is to prepare a Progress Report on the Short Term Plan and Programme for the implementation of the “Framework for Development and Cooperation in the Domain of Tourism between OIC Member States”, which had been prepared and adopted by the First Coordination Committee Meeting held in Damascus in March 2009. This report will be submitted to the 7th ICTM, which will be held in Tehran towards the end of 2010, for final approval.

During the working sessions, the participants reviewed the Draft Progress Report on the implementation of the “Framework for Development and Cooperation in the Domain of Tourism between the OIC Member States”, which was presented by the OIC General Secretariat. The Representatives of the Member States and Concerned OIC Institutions namely IRCICA, SESRIC, ICDT, IUT, ISESCO and ICCI submitted their proposals for the implementation of the Framework to be included in the Progress Report. The Meeting finally adopted the Draft Progress Report to be submitted to the 7th Islamic Conference of Tourism Ministers, to be held in the Islamic Republic of Iran, in November/December 2010.

During the working session, the representative of the ICCI made a presentation on the OIC Tourism Web Portal. In this respect, the representatives of the member States expressed their appreciations for the importance of this portal and suggested that this portal should be presented to the Ministers of Tourism during the 7th ICTM. The representative of Azerbaijan announced that the Government of Azerbaijan will organize International Scientific Conference on Protection and Promotion of Intangible Heritage in Ganja in September 2010 and invited all the member countries and relevant OIC institutions to attend the conference. The representative of Senegal announced that the Government of Senegal will organize and host Dakar 2010 International Tourism Fair on 28-30 May 2010.