Azernews.Az

By Leman Mammadova

Azerbaijan Airlines, Azerbaijan Tourism Bureau and the leading Chinese travel company - ETI-Holidays (Beijing HUAYUAN International Travel Co., LTD) signed a trilateral memorandum of understanding in Beijing.

The memorandum envisages increasing the flow of Chinese tourists to Azerbaijan by Beijing-Baku flight and from here to other countries in order to increase Baku’s transit capacity.

According to the memorandum, ETI-Holidays undertakes to promote Azerbaijan’s tourism potential and support the promotion of a new destination brand among local tourists.

Delegation of the Embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan to the People's Republic of China, Trade Representation and State Travel Agency of Azerbaijan attended the event.

It should be noted that Azerbaijan Airlines operates direct flights from Heydar Aliyev International Airport to Beijing Capital Airport by comfortable Boeing 767-300 liners.

In the modern world, tourism is one of the most dynamically developing and profitable sectors of the economy for each country.

Therefore, Azerbaijan aims to develop this sphere by all possible means. Sustainable development of the non-oil sector, in particular the tourism sector, is crucial at a time when it is impossible to fully rely on oil and gas industry.

The Memorandum will serve to expand tourism relations between Azerbaijan and China.

At present, AZAL is carrying out direct regular flights Baku-Beijing-Baku. It is planned to launch flights from Baku to other Chinese cities.

Starting from December 2018, official tourism office of Azerbaijan has started its operations in Beijing (Brand story Inc Pte Ltd) to introduce Azerbaijan's tourism opportunities, conduct propaganda and campaigning.

The direct flights between Azerbaijan and China, as well as the Azerbaijani government's simplifying visa regime for Chinese tourists are of great potential for developing relations between the two countries in the field of tourism.

The National Tourism Promotion Bureau considers the Chinese market to be one of the priority for attracting tourists. Since 2017, the tourism potential of Azerbaijan has been more actively promoted in this country.

The number of Chinese citizens who arrived in Azerbaijan in 2017 made 10,258, 7363 in 2016, 5094 in 2015, and 5930 in 2014.

Azerbaijan and Chinese tourism companies signed the cooperation agreement in April 2018 with the support of the National Tourism Propaganda Bureau under the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Azerbaijan. In first period, the companies, specializing in health tourism are eager to attract 2,000 more tourists per year on the basis of this agreement. Chinese experts say that about 1 million Chinese patients travel to China for health tourism a year. They consider that their citizens will mostly like Naftalan.

Previously, Chinese tourists visited our country in the framework of a common South Caucasus tour package. The new agreement only envisages the arrival to Azerbaijan.

The Confucius Institute under the Azerbaijan University of Languages (AUL) and Azerbaijan Tourism Association (AZTA) signed a memorandum of cooperation in July 2018 to assist in the development of tourism cooperation, to actively utilize the tourism resources of Azerbaijan and China, to support initiatives in this direction, to formulate a common tourist network, to improve the normative-legal documents on tourism, and to promote the application of a single information network.

The purpose of the memorandum is to assist the development of human resources in the tourism sector, in particular, the university's specialists will assist in organizing the association's courses in Chinese. Chinese tourists need qualified Chinese speaking guides to provide services.

The sides will create conditions for the active use of natural and cultural heritage for the purpose of tourism, undertake concerted measures for the restoration of traditional tourism routes and the opening of new ones, covering different types of active tourism (mountain-skiing, pedestrian, water, mountain, sailing, adventure tourism, as well as business and rural tourism).

The sides also undertook to promote tourism products in the tourism markets of Azerbaijan and China and carry out informational-propaganda campaigns on the tourism of the two countries.

Azerbaijan is among the developing countries in the field of tourism, occupying the 39th place among 148 countries in terms of global competitiveness in tourism.

In January-November 2018, the number of foreigners traveling from 193 countries to Azerbaijan amounted to 2.5 million people.

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