Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

More and more Arabs visit Baku and Azerbaijan’s other cities nowadays, while the country expects an extraordinary flow of tourists from Arab states in 2017.

Azerbaijan will welcome a record high in the number of Arab tourists in 2016, as the country has already witnessed significant rise in the number of incoming tourists this year.

Against the backdrop of recent economic processes, tourists from the United Arab Emirates began to prefer relatively budget routes.

Those tourists from the Gulf countries, which once chose European countries, including Turkey for the rest, and spent there millions of dollars, now favor Azerbaijan as a tourist destination by force of instability reigning in many countries.

However, this is not the only reason attracting Arabs in Azerbaijan. The country with fascinating nature and captivating history for years now Azerbaijan could upgrade its tourism potential in an effort to raise the non-oil sector of economy. Developing infrastructure, improving service sector, similarities in culture and most importantly safe leisure in the land embodying mixture of east and west are the main components that attract tourists to the Land of Fire.

Hard efforts to mobilize natural advantages enabled Azerbaijan to develop the tourism sector, which considerably improved in a short period of time.

According to the British think tank, every Arab tourist spent on average $3,000-$5,000 in the European countries for a week. The budgets of these countries were formed largely due to this profit.

The extraordinary influx of Arab tourists in the country has been also noticed by Azerbaijan Tourism Association Chairman Nahid Bagirov, who claimed that the number of tourists from Arab countries has increased tenfold in the last two or three years.

He stressed that so far such stream of Arabic-speaking guests has been not observed in the country. This summer, all the luxury hotels in Baku on 50-60 percent are filled with tourists from Arab countries, what Bagirov considers as a huge plus for the national tourism.

"Arab tourists are the best. They are usually wealthy people. They rest, spend money, go to restaurants, and do shopping. This means that the entire tourism industry benefit from this," the expert believes.

Recent economic instability is forcing tourists from UAE to choose cheaper tourist destinations, Dubai newspaper Gulf News reported.

Now UAE citizens are exploring the destinations, which they have never heard previously. New generation of travelers are increasingly interested not in a vacation at sea, but prefer new undiscovered countries and cities.

According to the UAE travel agencies, Azerbaijan and Georgia were listed as the low-cost destinations among Arab tourists, where a holiday will cost $490 and $430 respectively.

Expert on migration issues Azer Allahveranov, in turn, compared this tendency with the one during the Novruz Bayram national holiday in Azerbaijan, when the country welcomed record number of Iranian tourists, adding however, that the current influx is even greater.

He noted that if some of these tourists are interested in free sale of alcohol, pork products, hookahs, teahouse and discos in Azerbaijan, the other part are mesmerized with places for namaz, as well as lack of pork in food compositions. All these travelers share a love for luxury, beautiful nature and delicious cuisine.

“Rich tourists from the Gulf countries do not care about price. They appreciate quality and beauty,” the expert said.

Muhammad, a public worker in Dubai arrived in Baku to relax with his family, shared his impression about the city. He came to the capital with his wife, five children and servants.

“I did not expect that Baku to be so beautiful and cool. In Dubai we use air conditioner at home and office. We can go out only in the afternoon, because of the hot weather.

However, here you can go out any time you wish. Baku’s weather and sea are mesmerizing. I think that you are more lucky than we in this case,” he said.

Culture and Tourism Ministry reported the flow of the UAE tourists increased by 30 times. The number of tourists visited Azerbaijan from the UAE this May reached 3,000 people as compared with last May (99 people).

The ministry believes that was possible through strengthening the promotion strategy, simplifying visa regime from last November for the citizens of these countries as well as propagandizing Azerbaijan in various tourism exhibitions.

Last visit of Culture and Tourism Minister Abulfaz Garayev to the Gulf countries has brought positive results. During the visits Qatar and Kuwait regarded Azerbaijan as one of their favorite destinations. Azerbaijan Airlines has already discussed the organization of direct flights.

Moreover, the upcoming 6th Islamic Solidarity Games, which will bring together athletes from 57 Muslim states to Baku next May, also may raise the interest of Arab tourists to sunny Caucasus country to get closely familiar with this wonderful country.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

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