1.4M tourists visited Azerbaijan since early 2019

By Trend

In the first half of 2019, Azerbaijan was visited by 1.4 million foreign visitors, which is by 86,000 tourists, or 6.5 percent more compared to the same period last year, Trend reports with reference to Azerbaijan State Tourism Agency.

Most of the visitors (29.4 percent) are citizens of Russia, followed by tourists from Georgia (24.3 percent). Growth of the citizens of Georgia visiting Azerbaijan amounted to 22.8 percent and reached 342,000 people.

The number of guests arriving from Russia and Georgia accounted for more than 50 percent of the total number of tourists. The number of Turkish tourists increased by 3.7 percent, reaching 148,000 people.

There is rapid growth among tourists from the countries of Central and South Asia; the growth for this period was 50.2 percent and 37.8 percent, respectively.

For Azerbaijan, the main tourist markets of South Asia are India (27,000 tourists, with increase of 80.2 percent) and Pakistan (19,000 tourists, with increase of 24.4 percent), while the main tourist markets of Central Asia are Kazakhstan (20,000 tourists, with growth by 15.1 percent) and Turkmenistan (21,000 tourists, with an increase of 85 percent).

In January-June, over 34,000 tourists from Saudi Arabia arrived in Azerbaijan, which is by 15,000 people, or about 80 percent more than in the same period last year.

In June 2019, the total number of tourists arriving in Azerbaijan increased by 17.2 percent.