Azernews.Az

By Nigar Orujova

The Culture and Tourism Ministry granted licenses on touristic activity to three more companies, while one company was deprived off its license.

The touristic licenses were issued to Intur LLC, Magellan Travel LLC and Intourist Travel LLC. The license of AQ Horizont Travel LLC was annulled in accordance with the Azerbaijani legislation.

The number of hotels in Azerbaijan is on the rise recently. However, only 260 of the 514 operating hotels have obtained licenses. Today 221 licensed travel agencies operate in the country.

According to the ministry's tourism department of the Culture and Tourism Ministry, applications for licensing tourism companies and hotels are carried out online in Azerbaijan.

Online application for licensing started on October 1, 2012, and the system has fully operated since March 1, 2013.

Online registration was established to simplify licensing of legal entities and individuals involved in the tourism and hotel business, increase transparency of the licensing procedures, at the same time creating an electronic database of travel agencies, hotels and hotel-type facilities.

In 2012, the Culture and Tourism Ministry developed new standards on the hotels' star rating, which started implementation from this year.

Whereas earlier, assessing the category of hotels, 150 criteria were taken into account, at present, the state standard specifies almost 300 criteria for such facilities, which will increase the service level.

According to the ministry, some 50 new hotels are commissioned every year. The service of the hotels also increases with its quantity. Attention was also paid to lower grade hotels construction, which will diverse variety of services available to visitors.

The applicant is notified in case of a lack of some documents electronically. The applicant receives an answer within 15 days from the complete submission of documents and payment of the required state fee.

According to Culture and Tourism Minister Abulfaz Garayev, some 2.5 million foreign tourists visited Azerbaijan in 2012, and Azerbaijan expects an increase of 70 to 80 percent in the tourist flow in the next five to six years.