Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

The Azerbaijani government is committed to take further measures to improve tourism sector, which could bring huge revenues to the country.

Effective reforms will still occupy the government’s highest priorities, since they will positively impact the sector’s ability to face the global economic crisis caused by law crude prices. Thus, the state came up with the efficient reforms to boost the tourism development this year.

A new bill ‘On Tourism’, targeting to improve the national tourism, has already been submitted to the Parliament for further discussions. The parliamentary committee on labor and social policy already held relevant discussions.

Culture and Tourism Ministry’ Tourism Department Head, Mahir Gahramanov, who attended the meeting, noted that the main task in developing this sector is creation of tourist infrastructure.

“The road and infrastructure projects are implemented in the country’s regions. However, if we want to turn Azerbaijan into a strong tourism destination such as Turkey, Italy and Spain, we must create tourist and recreational zones,” he explained his view.

Gahramanov noted the need to maximize the number of hotel rooms with the support of both local and foreign investors, along with the large-scale promotion of the county.

The bill stipulates establishment of tourist offices for the promotion of Azerbaijan’s tourism potential both at domestic and foreign level.

“These offices will contribute to the formation of tourist services in the country’s regions. In addition, the bill raises the issue of enlarging the network of tourist information centers, which will meet requirements of the modern period,” Gahramanov emphasized.

The official further added that resources allocated by the National Entrepreneurship Support Fund to local businessmen and foreign investments are not enough to solve all the problems in the tourism sector.

Therefore, the head of the department underlined the importance of creating tourist funds and more flexible financial mechanisms to regulate them under the state.

Another important issue discussed at the meeting was ensuring safety and security of tourists. Although Azerbaijan is recognized as the most secure and stable state among Eastern Europe and the CIS countries, the regulation will secure from any possible problems in this field.

Henceforth, issues on the safety of foreign tourists and security of Azerbaijani citizens, who are traveling abroad, as well as guarantees in tourism and insurance issues in the tourism sector will be regulated by law.

An important issue, according to the head of the sector, is creation and certification of tourist routes to ensure the safety of tourists.

“Existing intangible and tangible monuments in Azerbaijan allow us to create a tourist route for turning the country into a fairly attractive tourist area,” he said.

The new bill also covers health, social, eco, rural green and adventure tourism.

However, Gahramanov said, this does not mean that today Azerbaijan has only these types of tourism, as the country is suitable for nearly every type of tourism.

“The abovementioned types of tourism are included in the bill because of their importance, and given the experience of other countries and recommendations of the World Tourism Organization,” he said.

Earlier, Deputy Culture and Tourism Minister Nazim Samadov highlighted the fact that prices in the country’s tourism sector are much cheaper than in regional countries.

“While comparing hotels prices before Novruz holiday, we revealed that cost of 5-star hotels in Azerbaijan are 3-4 times and 4-star hotels are two times cheaper than in Georgia,” he said.

Developing budget tourism plays a decisive role in the country’s plan on turning into the tourist attraction. Experts have repeatedly noted that reducing the cost of airfare and hotel services will increase the number of tourists coming to Azerbaijan and contribute to the tourism development.

Along with a decrease in hotel fares, there is a need to build more three-star hotels. The country can accommodate over 35,000 tourists in over 530 hotels, but Azerbaijan still needs more low cost hotels to meet the demands of its budget tourists.

Azerbaijan mostly attracts tourists from Russia, Turkey and Europe, and they are accustomed to fly at more favorable prices.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

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