BAKU, Azerbaijan, January 25. Azerbaijan will carry out important works on the development of ecotourism after COP29, Advisor of the Azerbaijan Tourism Association Muzaffar Agakerimov said during the event in Baku on the theme "Non-Tariff Barriers to Trade" , Trend reports.
He emphasized that Azerbaijan has a huge tourism potential.
"800 hotels have been operating in Azerbaijan since 2000. This is an indicator of development. Ecotourism occupies the first place among the types of tourism in the world. Impressive work in this direction will be carried out in Azerbaijan after COP29. Beach tourism, in turn, is in second place and Azerbaijan has great potential in this sphere. It is necessary to do a great job on beach hotels in Khachmaz, Baku, and Absheron zones, as well as in the southern zone of the country. It is important to make a lot of efforts to obtain international ecological status in this sphere. The beaches of Türkiye, Greece, France, and Spain have received it, which testifies that these beaches comply with the standards of safety and high quality. The third place is occupied by ski tourism. There has been a great deal of development in this area in Azerbaijan. In general, if it were not for the coronavirus pandemic that hit the tourism sector, Azerbaijan could have received about 4 million tourists last year," Agakerimov said.
Meanwhile, according to the State Tourism Agency of Azerbaijan, 2,086,548 tourists visited the country from January through December 2023 (30.2 percent growth).
Only in December 2023, 192,869 foreigners visited Azerbaijan, which is 34.11 percent higher than in 2022 (143,814).
The top 10 countries in terms of the number of foreigners visiting Azerbaijan in December 2023 included Russia (47,347 people), Türkiye (36,372 people), Iran (17,526 people), India (17,524 people), UAE (11,374 people), Georgia (10,781 people), Pakistan (6,009 people), Kazakhstan (4,823 people), Uzbekistan (4,441 people) and Saudi Arabia (4,174 people).
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