Country plans to open direct flights with India, Pakistan

21 August 2018 14:17 (UTC+04:00)

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By Sara Israfilbayova

It is planned to open direct flights in 2019 between Azerbaijan and India, as well as with Pakistan.

Nahid Bagirov, chairman of the Azerbaijan Tourism Association (AzTA) said that active negotiations are currently underway in this direction.

Bagirov underlined that even despite the absence of direct flights, Azerbaijan has recently seen a sharp increase in the number of tourists from India and Pakistan.

Earlier, Bagirov stressed that the tourism potential of Azerbaijan will be presented at thematic exhibitions in Asia.

He noted that currently, the Association together with the State Tourism Agency is planning to participate in two exhibitions in Pakistan and Singapore.

The tourism exhibition will be held in Pakistan on October 2-4, and in Singapore on October 17-19.

He added that at present, a lot of work is carried out to promote the tourism potential of Azerbaijan.

Ensuring sustainable economic development by raising non-oil sector is an important task facing the country at the present stage. Numerous studies show that tourism is one of the leading positions among the spheres of non-oil sector in terms of its prospects and the country does its best to create profitable conditions for development of this sphere and attract more tourists to the country.

As many as 1.325 million foreigners and stateless persons from 189 countries visited Azerbaijan in January to June 2018, which is 10.2 percent higher than the same period of 2017.

Some 30.5 percent of the tourists were from Russia, 21.1 percent from Georgia, 11.1 percent from Iran, 10.8 percent from Turkey, 3.6 percent from the UAE, 2.1 percent from Iraq, 2 percent from Ukraine, and 18.7 percent from other countries.

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Sara Israfilbayova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Sara_999Is