Azernews.Az

By Laman Ismayilova

The Azerbaijan Tourism Forum organized by the Tourism Lab has been held at the Heydar Aliyev Congress Center in Gabala.

The event was attended by about 250 tourism professionals, heads of Baku and regional hotels, representatives of travel agencies, media and travel bloggers, Trend Life reported.

The Forum aims to introduce the tourism opportunities of the country, future perspectives, modern technological innovations into the development of the country’s tourism, discuss legislation and its issues and the challenges that each tourism related company face.

The newly established Tourism Laboratory (Tourism Lab) was presented at the forum.

Addressing the event, the head of Tourism Lab Havva Safarova stressed that the company's goal is to create innovations in tourism. She also provided information on such projects as "Azerbaijan Hospitality Academy (AHA)", "Tourism Students", "MeetUp", and "Superkids Summer Camp".

Safarova also presented the Azerbaijan Tourism Awards, which at the end of the year will be presented to the best travel companies, hotels, restaurants and even tourists. Registration starts on May 1. For more information, please visit www.tourismawards.az.

The speakers made speeches on several topics. Seymur Hajiyev, Gilan Hospitality Group's Procurement Director, spoke about "General aspects of hospitality procurement and their optimization, creation of electronic procurement platform"; Shabnam Suleymanova, Managing Director of Caucasus Tufandag Hotel Gabala, presented "Development of Mountain Tourism: Solution for low season"; Goydeniz Gahramanov, Head of Spektr Travel, spoke about "Current influx of tourists on the market and price competition".

Also, Orkhan Isayev, Regional Director of HRS-Hospitality and Retail Systems, presented "Application of Modern Technologies in Hotels and Restaurants"; Daniel Burkhard, General Manager of Chenot Palace Hotel, spoke about "Therapeutic Tourism"; David Khripunov, Founder of David Digital Sharks, spoke about "City branding"; and Rivka Khripunova, founder of distant English courses, presented "Globish".

Then speakers answered questions of the audience.

The Azerbaijan Tourism Forum is held for the fourth year, bringing together specialists and playing a key role in discussing problems in the field of tourism. All these activities, emphasizing the best examples of national tourism, represent a search for various ways of developing tourism and solutions.

The Forum is the first and only platform in Azerbaijan which is open to anyone interested in not only the tourism industry, but also in other spheres, as well as in the creation of a new business in tourism. Creating contacts is one of the main Forum trends.

Media partners of the event are Azernews.az, Trend.az, Day.az, Milli.az.

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

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