Azerbaijan, Baku, June 24 / Trend A. Akhundov /
About 499 hotels and hotel-type facilities operate in Azerbaijan. About 310 hotels are licensed, the head of the tourism sector of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism Vugar Shihmammadov told Trend.
"The Ministry of Culture and Tourism regularly warns facilities without licenses," Shihmammadov said. "The functioning of these facilities is against the law. The ministry works regularly in this regard."
The Head of the Study, Work, Statistics and Licensing Sector of the Tourism Ministry, Rahman Orujlu, said earlier that a list of facilities operating without licenses is regularly posted at the ministry's website and media. Local and foreign tourists are recommended to refrain from visiting them.
"Certain documents should be submitted to the ministry to obtain a license. Unfortunately, some hotel owners and owners of hotel-type facilities make mistakes during construction. As a result, the facility cannot obtain certain documents despite having already been built. Of course, we cannot issue a license if the facility did not submit the necessary documents," Orujlu said.
The ministry will take strict measures from now on, he added.
"The leadership has a principled position that illegal facilities should be suspended. I want to note that most of such illegal facilities are located outside of Baku," Orujlu said.
The ministry issues licenses to hotels and hotel-type facilities for five years after paying 1,500 manat in state fees and for tourist activities, 5,500 manat, for a five-year term after payment.