The Economic department of tourism was established in 2005 to perform basic, developing and practical studies and R projects for offices, organizations and various sections of the government and private sector. It has defined and performed research surveys in various Economic fields. This department has succeeded in performing numerous projects at various national, provincial and urban levels, some of which have been chosen as the best surveys.

The department's main focus of research activities has been on issues about Economics of Tourism and cities. Therefore, the following are its major domains of research:

1. Performing practical research on new subjects and Economics issues, particularly the E of Tourism;
2. Identifying problems and difficulties and offering solutions in various fields of the Economics of Tourism;
3. Performing Economic surveys in Eco-tourism, Ecology and rural tourism;
4. Performing Economic studies in various fields of market and marketing and planning;

This D has, so far, achieved scientific products in the framework of projects and numerous scientific-research articles. Holding specialized seminars, conferences and educational-specialized workshops are other accomplishments of this department.

The network plan:

The network plan of this department is consisted of a combination of interrelated research projects which eventually answer a major research problem. The network plan is proposed by the department to the central office of ACECR, and after approval will be considered in the agenda.

The main axis of the proposed network plan is "investment in the tourism industry of Mashhad".  The significance of investment in all scientific- specialized and administrative topics of Economics and other fields, the availability of new scientific fields in terms of scientific products, the presence of implementing the achieved results and providing research services have all been the chief reason of selecting the above axis. This network plan includes a combination of projects, which covers various dimensions of investment in the Economics of Tourism. The main goals of this network plan are:

Investigating the theory and theoretical basics of investment in Tourism industry

Investigating the problems and difficulties of Tourism industry of Mashhad to absorb investment

Offering investment-absorbing patterns in the Tourism industry

The network plan of the department of Economics of Tourism has three major axes, every one of which covers a set of projects