Azerbaijan, appropriate tourism destination for Russians

/By Azernews/

By Amina Nazarli

A tense situation between some countries hamper tourism sector in many tourist attractive counties.

Director of Summer Tour travel company Aykhan Allazli claims that Azerbaijan can become a new destination for Russian tourists.

He said that due to deterioration of the situation between Turkey and Russia, as well as recommendations of the Russian tour operators not to visit Egypt, Azerbaijan can take advantage of this situation to attract more Russian tourists.

“Russian market is quite extensive, and it is good starting point for Azerbaijan. In the future we will need to gradually increase the flow of tourists from other directions. Today Azerbaijan is visited by European and Asian tourists, but the flow is sufficiently low,” he told Trend.

Allazli also touched upon outbound tourism, noting that the number of the national tourists, wishing to visit Turkey, has increased significantly as compared to last year.

“So far, about 4,000 packages have been sold, while last year their number varied between 2,800 and 3,000,” he said.

Meanwhile, Azerbaijan has already taken steps to promote the country as an attractive tourist destination for Russians. The national travel offices have opened in Russia. Moreover, many Russian travel agencies are interested in tourism opportunities of Azerbaijan.

Now after Turkey’s and Egypt's beaches became inaccessible, Russian tourists seek new destinations for traveling.

Popular Russian tourist service Travel.ru placed Baku’s blue Caspian Sea among Top 5 most popular tourist resort destinations in the CIS countries.

Baku is the only capital on the CIS area with the sea coastline and conditions for holiday stay.

Warm sea, sandy beaches and Caucasian cuisine attract tourists to the beach resorts of Azerbaijan. Visiting to the ancient cities here can be combined with swimming in the sea.

Now, Russian tourists make more than 30 percent of the total tourists visiting the country.

Russians choose Azerbaijan as their travel destination for many reasons. First of all the Land of Fire does not require visa for Russian tourists to enjoy the country.

Azerbaijan is also a perfect destination for Russian tourists, because of its people’s very friendly attitude towards Russia.

Here Russian-speaking tourists have no problem with communication, as Azerbaijanis speak Russian well enough to help with any difficulties.