"The guests of the NAM summit were beneficial to Iran's tourism industry more than what we expected," Deputy Head of Iran's Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization for Tourism Affairs Manouchehr Jahanian told FNA on Monday.
"Before the presence of the guests, we had predicted that Iran's tourism (industry) would gain $50mln but the figure increased during the conference after the number of guests and the hosting hotels went up," he added.
The 16th NAM summit was held in Tehran from August 26 to 31.
Some 51 countries sent their high-ranking leaders to the 16th heads-of-state summit of NAM, while over 150 delegations from the world countries and bodies attended the other meetings of the bloc in Tehran.
NAM, which is comprised of some 120 member and 17 observer states, is an international organization of states considering themselves not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. NAM is the largest grouping of countries outside of the United Nations.
During the 6 days of holding the conference, the Iranian officials held meetings with the heads of states and important leaders of different countries attending the conference on different regional and international issues as well as the bilateral relations.
NAM member states represent nearly two-thirds of the United Nations' members and comprise 55% of the world population, particularly countries considered to be developing or part of the Third World.
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Publish Date: 3 September 2012 - 14:28
A senior tourism official said the revenues Iran collected from the world delegations visiting the country for the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit were beyond expectations and highly beneficial to the country's tourism industry.