Azernews.Az

Thursday March 28 2024

Embassy: Turkey, Azerbaijan intend to launch joint tourist tours

11 April 2017 16:30 (UTC+04:00)
Embassy: Turkey, Azerbaijan intend to launch joint tourist tours

By Rashid Shirinov

Turkey and Azerbaijan intend to launch joint tourist tours in a bid to increase the tourist flow and revenues of the sector.

The joint tours can be arranged to the countries neighboring Azerbaijan and Turkey – in particular they may include Georgia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia, Counselor for Culture and Propaganda at the Turkish Embassy in Baku Irfan Ciftci told Trend on April 11.

“Our task is to provide a more complete integration of the tourism potential of Azerbaijan with the relevant sector of Turkey," he said.

Ciftci noted that the travel companies of Turkey carry out joint tours to Central Asia, Europe and other regions, and proposed to establish joint Turkey-Azerbaijan-Georgia tours or joint travel of Azerbaijan and Turkey with other countries.

He added that the Azerbaijani and Turkish travel companies are negotiating on the development of such tours.

The counsellor also reminded that the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway will open in June.

“In this regard, new opportunities in tourism sector will show up. The rail tourism is a great form of recreation, and I believe that companies will be able to get to work in this field,” Ciftci said.

Today tourism is developing with high speed in Azerbaijan, with a contribution of 4.5 percent to the national GDP. There are more than 500 hotels in Azerbaijan, while the capital hosts the world’s leading hotel chains. Last year, 35 hotels were built in the country, while 25 are under construction.

In 2016, the number of tourists visiting Azerbaijan amounted to 2,242 million people and this is 11.7 percent more than in 2015. The majority of tourists came from Russia, Georgia, Turkey and Iran making up 33 percent, 22.5 percent, 13.9 percent and 10.9 percent, accordingly.

---

Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz

Loading...
Latest See more