BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 7. The opening of new flights will contribute to the development of tourism between Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, Director of the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Yerkin Tukumov said, Trend reports.
Tukumov made the remark during a round table dedicated to the second meeting of the Azerbaijan-Kazakhstan expert council.
According to him, the existing tourist flow between Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan is insufficient and doesn’t correspond to the countries' potential in this area.
"The development of tourism is one of the crucial points for increasing the level of ties between our countries. A deeper knowledge of culture by our peoples, each other's history, undoubtedly, has a significant impact on the positive dynamics of humanitarian and cultural ties between Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan,” he noted.
The opening of new flights will facilitate travel citizens, which will affect the economy of both countries, the director added.
According to Azerbaijan's State Tourism Agency, 73,823 tourists from Central Asian countries visited Azerbaijan in 2022, which was 4.75 times more than in 2021 (15,516).
According to the agency, the number of visitors from Kazakhstan amounted to 30,350 people (an increase of 4.3 times per year), Turkmenistan - 11,188 (an increase of 4.08 times per year), Uzbekistan - 26,309 (an increase of 6.2 times per year), Kyrgyzstan - 3,240 (an increase of 3.87 times per year), and Tajikistan - 2,736 (an increase of 3.33 times over the year).
For the last five years, a total of 411,141 foreigners from Central Asia visited Azerbaijan (167,052 from Kazakhstan; 119,201 from Turkmenistan; 96,278 from Uzbekistan; 15,467 from Kyrgyzstan, and 13,143 – from Tajikistan).