Shop owners in eastern Van province learn Persian to welcome Iranian tourists

VAN – Demirören News Agency

Shop owners in the eastern province of Van have begun learning Persian to communicate better with tourists from Iran and to provide better service to them.

The language course, established with the cooperation of the Chamber of Tradesmen and Craftsmen (ESOB) and the Eastern Anatolia Development Agency (DAKA) at the request of the shop owners, currently has 100 attendees who want to make use of the Iranian tourist wave to the border city.

Yılmaz Tekin, the project’s coordinator, stated that the aim is to teach the shop owners Persian and English at a level on which they can negotiate with tourists.

“Many Iranian tourists have come to Van recently,” Tekin said.

“We also want our craftsmen and artisans to greet our Iranian guests. We want to provide a little more contribution to the thousands of years of friendship between Iran and Turkey. We want to contribute to the involvement of the Van tradesmen in commercial life. We launched such a project to happily welcome our guests to the country.”

Osman Aslan, who has been a shopkeeper for 10 years in Van, said he started learning Persian in order to welcome Iranian tourists better.

“I applied to the Persian course to serve the tourists in their mother tongue and to promote our city better,” Aslan added.

“We are learning Persian with the support of instructors here. We are very pleased with this situation. So far we have reached the level to express ourselves. We learned Persian words used in daily life.”

Tradesman Mustafa Işık thanked the authorities for the opportunity.

“These courses are a great opportunity to welcome our guests in the name of our country and our city,” he said.

“We, as tradesmen, wanted to take advantage of this opportunity. We started by learning words spoken in everyday life and we continue to develop our Persian skills. Hopefully, we will welcome the tourists who come to our city in their own language.”