BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 24
By Eldar Janashvili - Trend:
The rapid spread of coronavirus infection in the world had a negative impact on the tourism sector in most countries from January through March 2020, which is also observed in Azerbaijan, Trend reports on April 24 referring the Azerbaijani State Statistics Committee.
“A decrease in the activity of hotels and hotel-type enterprises, which are the main elements of the tourist infrastructure, was observed in Azerbaijan from January through March 2020 compared to the same period of 2019,” the committee said.
So, 474,600 nights accounted for the hotels in Azerbaijan from January through March 2020, which is 13 percent less than in the same period of 2019.
The main reason for the decline was a sharp decrease in the number of overnight stays of tourists in March 2020 due to the introduction of restrictive measures on the state border between Azerbaijan and neighboring countries and in the field of transport communication with most countries to prevent the spread of coronavirus infection.
The number of overnight stays in hotels decreased by 2.7 times in March 2020 compared to February and by 2.9 times compared to March 2019.
About 55.4 percent of overnight stays in hotels accounted for Baku, 9.8 percent - Gusar, 8.4 percent - Gabala, 5.1 percent - Naftalan, 4.6 percent - Guba, 3.8 percent - Nakhchivan, 2 percent - Lankaran, 1.7 percent - Shabran, 1 percent - Mingachevir, 0.8 percent – Ganja, and 7.4 percent - in other districts and cities.
The number of nights spent by Azerbaijani citizens in hotels from January through March 2020 increased by 5.5 percent compared to the period from January through March 2019 and reached 373,300.
Among foreign tourists, the absolute majority (73.4 percent) stayed in Baku, 7.8 percent in Gusar, 5.2 percent in Gabala, 4.9 percent in Naftalan, and four percent in Nakhchivan.
In general, from January through March 2020, the number of nights spent by foreigners and stateless people decreased by 16.7 percent compared to the same period of 2019 and amounted to 314,900 or 66.4 percent of the total number. The number of overnight stays spent in the country by Azerbaijani citizens decreased by four percent and amounted to 159,700 (33.6 percent).
Russian citizens (15.9 percent), the United Arab Emirates citizens (12 percent), Saudi Arabian citizens (10.8 percent) and Turkish citizens (7.1 percent) mainly stayed in Azerbaijani hotels. Among citizens of other countries, tourists from India (6.7 percent), Kuwait (5.3 percent) and the United Kingdom (four percent) stayed in Azerbaijani hotels.
In the first quarter of 2020, hotel revenues decreased by 15.8 percent compared to the same period of 2019 and amounted to 60 million manat ($35 million).
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