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Russian tourists prefer Azerbaijan

3 August 2016 10:00 (UTC+04:00)
Russian tourists prefer Azerbaijan

By Rashid Shirinov

Baku ranks third among the CIS cities popular among Russian tourists. This was stated by the service for hotel search RoomGuru.ru, who defined the most popular cities of the CIS for travel in 2016 among Russians. The ranking was drawn up according to searching and booking of hotels and apartments from January 1 to July 31, 2016.

The Russians arrive for an average of 2.5 days and pay approximately $42 a day for hotel accommodation. The cheapest prices are in Bishkek ($28 per day), while the most expensive are for Astana ($52 a day).

So far, the Top 10 CIS cities for travel in 2016 among Russian tourists are Minsk, Almaty, Baku, Astana, Yerevan, Kiev, Tashkent, Bishkek, Vitebsk and Chisinau.

The increase of tourists coming from Russia to Azerbaijan is mainly related with the recent Formula 1 Grand Prix of Europe, music festival Heat, active promotion of the country’s tourism in the Russian market and new flights launched between the Russian and Azerbaijani cities.

“Much plays its role: absence of language barrier, unique beauty of nature, the proximity, and all the efforts of the Azerbaijani authorities directed to infrastructure development,” the head of the inter-parliamentary group of friendship between Russia and Azerbaijan Dmitry Savelyev stressed.

In this regard, the extension of the transport links between Russia and Azerbaijan is quite logical – there is demand and there is subsequent supply. “And the demand now is great, because it is necessary to consider the growth of the reverse tourist flow – from Azerbaijan to Russia,” Savelyev says.

In the past few days, several Russian air carriers received permission to perform flights to Baku from such Russian cities as Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Kaluga and Rostov-na-Donu. Flights for the latter will be implemented by Pobeda low-cost carrier. This is expected to even more enhance the bilateral passenger traffic between the two countries.

Two other airlines received permission to operate flights from Zhukovsky to the Azerbaijani city of Ganja several times a week. Moreover, Russian company Ural Airlines opened a new flight Gabala-Moscow-Gabala from July 31, which will be operated every Sunday from now.

Azerbaijan offers numerous must-see spots, one of which is the Shahdag Winter-Summer Tourism Complex. It was recently claimed to enter the Top 3 popular resort for mountain hiking among Russia and CIS countries, according to the tourist portal TurStat. Mountain lovers can enjoy trekking, mountain bike tours, Segway tours, trottinet, quad bike, bob-karting, zip-line and horseback riding during Shahdag summer vacation.

Shahdag offers guests endless list of thrilling sports and leisure activities all year round. The resort offers various sport and recreational activities for all patrons regardless of age.

Over the past year, Azerbaijan received over 2 million tourists, 685,000 of whom were guests from Russia. Taking into account all mentioned above, this figure is expected to rise by the end of 2016.
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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz

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