Azernews.Az

By Mirsaid Ibrahimzade

Azerbaijan is among the fastest-growing destinations for tourists, which successfully meets tourists’ expectations by beautiful nature, hospitality of its people, the country's capital with its super modern and ancient buildings.

Thus, the country attracts more and more tourists every year. The number of tourists coming to Azerbaijan from Japan and China increased markedly in January-April this year.

The number of tourists from China increased 1.6 times during this period, and from Japan - by 37.1 percent.

In April alone, the number of foreigners who arrived in Azerbaijan went up by 19,400 (by 8.9 percent) compared to the same month of 2018 and reached 238,000 people.

In general, this year 848,400 foreigners from 170 countries arrived in Azerbaijan. There was an increase in the number of tourists from Egypt (2.2 times), Saudi Arabia (1.9 times), India (1.8 times), Turkmenistan (1.8 times), China (1.6 times), Japan (by 37.1 percent), Canada (31.8 percent), Pakistan (28.8 percent), Georgia (22.6 times), Poland (20.8 percent) and South Korea (20.5 percent).

As the State Agency for Tourism has previously reported, according to the memorandum of understanding on the simplification of group tours of Chinese tourists in Azerbaijan, concluded with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of China, the number of tourists from this country can reach 200,000 in the coming years.

According to the State Statistics Committee of Azerbaijan, in 2018, as many as 2,849,600 tourists from 196 countries visited the country. Tourists spent over $2 billion in Azerbaijan last year. Currently, the country takes consistent measures to develop not only the sightseeing tourism but also health, rural and cruise tourism.

Moreover, Baku increasingly spreads its flight map over the world which reduces travel costs of tourists and makes contribution to influx of foreigners to Azerbaijan.

In addition, various grand international events are held in Azerbaijan improved the tourism sector of the country, increased competitiveness and made Baku one of the main destinations which must be visited.

As an example, the recent football decider, Europa League final on May 29, which became a high level football spectacle successfully hosted by Baku and engaged attention of the whole world, brought many visitors to Azerbaijan.

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Mirsaid Ibrahimzade is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @MirsaidIbrahim1

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