Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

Azerbaijan, known for its centuries-old history and outspoken hospitality, welcomed many travelers during the Novruz Bayrami celebrated in the country.

The colorful holiday accompanied by interesting traditions, customs and events have always been a sort of entertainment for many tourists from the neighboring countries.

Novruz is one of the most cherished holidays of many Azerbaijanis, when people are kind of uniting with nature ... since spring is coming and nature is awakening. Symbolizing the end of an old year and beginning of a new year, this holiday is the oldest festival of spring and included in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity

Chairman of the Azerbaijan Tourism Association (AzTA) Nahid Bagirov announced that a significant part of the tourists visiting Azerbaijan during the Novruz celebrations were citizens of Iran.

The number of tourists was significantly more this year compared to 2015. “During holidays, Azerbaijan was visited by a large number of tourists from Iran. Many tourists also came from the countries of Central Asia, where Novruz is also celebrated. I want to emphasize that the tourist flow was much higher this year than in the previous years,” Bagirov told Trend.

Bagirov further added that the tourists mainly visited Azerbaijan for outdoor activities, as Novruz is accompanied by folk festivals, unusual traditions and, of course, lavish treats on the tables.

“Tourists visited many museums and interesting parts of Baku. It is a pity that the guests mostly preferred to stay in Baku and did not travel to the regions of the country, which is due to cool weather in the regions,” he said.

Talking about the currency exchange during the holidays, Bagirov said despite the fact that many local banks did not work during the holidays, hotels operating in the country could easily exchange foreign currency into the national manats.

“Those tourists, who stayed in hotels, could easily change their money for the national currency. However many tourists were not aware of this.

Regretfully, many Iranian travel companies are trying to work directly with hotels. If they worked with local tour companies, which initially provide such information to tourists, then these unpleasant cases would have been much less,” he explained.

The expensive USD after the devaluation of the national currency manat has positively impacted the tourist flow to the country mostly from Turkey, Russia, Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

During Novruz the northwest regions of the country were visited by about 35,000 tourists, according to unofficial statistics.

The country’s regions attracted both local and foreign tourists during the holiday and according to experts their number reached a record level this year.

The majority of tourists piled into Azerbaijan’s northwest regions including Gabala and Sheki, which were visited by 16,000 and 10,000 visitors respectively.

The main attractions of these regions are their ancient architecture, historical monuments, picturesque nature and delicious cuisine. Moreover, the level of service is another reason why many people choose mainly these destinations.

--

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

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz