Tourism revenues rise in Azerbaijan

/By AzerNews - Nigar Orujova/

Azerbaijan, a country of incredible beauty and captivating history, is turning into a regional tourism hub.

The number of tourists who visited Azerbaijan in 2014 reached 2.3 million, said Abulfaz Garayev, Culture and Tourism Minister.

Calculations show that the past year yielded about one billion manats ($950,065 million) from tourism.

The simplification of the visa regime for tourists, creating new places to meet tourists and other efforts in the tourism sector played an important part in this result.

The minister also noted on the development of domestic tourism in the country.

"Domestic tourism in Azerbaijan is facing a new stage of development. Last year, student trips (9-11 grades) were organized to several regions. The project was called "Introduction to the country". The trips gathered more than 4,000 students. I believe that in the future this project will be organized on a greater scale," he said.

Garayev added that in recent years, the number of both foreign and local tourists has been steadily growing. Such growth has to do with the development of tourism infrastructure across the regions and the creation of new tourism products and modern resorts.

"The Tourism Ministry will create all conditions for every tourist coming to visit the country for the first European Games and get acquainted with Azerbaijan's hospitality, cultural values and history," he added.

Less than 60 days are left before the inaugural Games that will gather over 6,000 sportsmen in Azerbaijan. Moreover, 3,000 accompanying staff are expected to come as well as thousands of sport fans from all over the world.

Azerbaijan has the capacity to accommodate over 35,000 tourists in its 530 hotels.

The country is expected to increase its tourist flow up to 5 million a year. Every tourist arriving in Azerbaijan spends a minimum of $700 in the country.

Hotels report about income increase

Last year, hotels in Azerbaijan saw a sharp rise in income - 5.7 percent compared to 2013. That's 181 million manats, the State Statistics Committee reported.

Of this amount, 64.7 percent came from the sale of rooms, 23.8 percent from the sale of food, beverages and the remainder from other services.

The number of rooms increased by 4.9 percent and reached 17,363 in 2014 in comparison with 2013, and a one-time capacity by five percent (35,652 beds), of which 11,792 fall on hotels located in Baku, and 23,860 beds to hotels in other cities and regions of the country.

Five percent of hotels are state-run in Azerbaijan, while 95 percent are non-state entities.

The number of checking ins to hotels has also slightly increased in 2014 by 0.8 percent. About half of all bookings (47.6 percent) involve foreign citizens. Baku remains the most focus of all tourist activities with 64.1 percent of all check inns being recorded in the capital.

Azerbaijani hotels now attracts more tourists from Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Czech Republic, Japan, Belgium, Poland, Turkey, Moldova, China, Germany and Romania.

Over the past year, hotels across the country hosted 392,800 foreigners, mostly citizens of Great Britain, Russia, Turkey, U.S., Germany, Iran, Italy, Ukraine, France, Georgia, Kazakhstan and China.

In the next coming years, the country will attract tourists with Islamic Solidarity Games, Formula 1 race and quarterfinals and three group games of the Euro 2020.