Azerbaijan reveals situation of tourism sector amid COVID-19

By Azernews

By Akbar Mammadov

Azerbaijan has experienced a sharp decline in the number of incoming tourists since March due to the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic, the State Statistics Committee reported on June 22.

According to the report, in January-May 2020, 563,900 foreigners and stateless persons visited Azerbaijan from 152 countries, thus the country’s tourism shrunk by 1.9 times compared to the same period in 2019.

Majority of the tourists were from Russia (30.2 percent) and Georgia (27.3 percent) in January-May 2020.

Some 13.2 percent of the visitors came from Turkey, 6.7 percent from Iran, 2.2 percent from India, 2.1 percent from Saudi Arabia and Ukraine, 1.4 percent in the United Arab Emirates, 1.3 percent in Pakistan, Kuwait and Kazakhstan, 1.1 percent in Turkmenistan, 0.9 percent in Iraq and the United Kingdom, 0.8 percent from Uzbekistan; 0.7 percent were citizens of Israel, 6.4 percent were citizens of other countries, and 0.1 percent were stateless persons.

As to the gender of the visitors, 75.1 percent of the visitors were men, while 24.9 percent were women.

In January-May this year, the number of visitors from China decreased by 5.5 times, from South Korea - 4,4 times, from the United Arab Emirates - 4.1 times, from Poland - 3.8 times, from Japan - 3.7 times, from the UK - 3.5 times, from Canada and Israel - 3.3 times, from Hungary - 3.2 times, from the United States and France - 3.1 times, whereas from rom Germany and the Netherlands - 3.0 times, from Italy - 2.9 times, Malaysia and Turkmenistan -2.7 times.

Overall, the number of arrivals from EU member countries decreased by 3.4 times, amounting to 16.2 thousand people, while the figure from Gulf countries decreased by 2.2 times to 75.3 thousand people, from CIS countries decreased by 1.9 times to 205.4 thousand people.

Some 66.9 percent of foreigners and stateless persons came to Azerbaijan by rail and road, whereas 31.6 percent of them arrived by air and 1.5 percent by sea.

As to the number of Azerbaijani citizens visiting abroad, the figure decreased by 2.2 times, amounting 958.8 thousand people. Some 33.5 percent of the country's citizens visited Iran, 29.7 percent Georgia, 20.4 percent the Russian Federation, 9.6 percent Turkey and 6.8 percent other countries. In addition, 69.3 percent of those who left were men and 30.7 percent were women.

During this period, the number of Azerbaijani citizens traveling to Iran decreased by 2.5 times, to Turkey by 2.2 times, to Georgia by 2.0 times, and the number of those traveling to the Russian Federation declined by 1.9 times

Thus, in January-April 2020, 82.0 percent of the citizens of Azerbaijan who visited foreign countries used railways and automobiles, while 16.4 percent and 1.6 percent of them traveled by air and sea, respectively.