BAKU, Azerbaijan, Jan. 27
By Elchin Mehtiyev – Trend:
More than 3.1 million of foreigners and stateless persons from 193 countries visited Azerbaijan in 2019, which shows an increase by 11.3 percent compared to 2018, Trend reports referring to the State Tourism Agency on Jan. 27.
Most of them (29.4%) were citizens of Russia, 22.9 percent - of Georgia, 10 percent - of Turkey, 8.1 percent - of Iran, 3.4 percent - of Saudi Arabia, 2.2 percent - of the UAE, 2.1 percent - of India, 1.9 percent - of Ukraine, 1.6 percent - of Turkmenistan and Iraq for each, 1.5 percent - of Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Israel for each, 1.2 percent - of the UK, 11 percent - citizens of other countries, and 0.1 percent - people without citizenship.
Among the arriving persons, 66.6 percent were men, 33.4 percent were women.
Major annual increase of visits was observed from Turkmenistan – 84.2 percent, India – 66.8 percent, China - 62.4 percent, Egypt - 55.6 percent, Malaysia - 54.9 percent, Saudi Arabia – 46.3 percent, Hungary – 33.6 percent, Poland – 31.1 percent, Uzbekistan – 28.4 percent, Kazakhstan 25.7 percent, Great Britain - 25.5 percent, Philippines - 24, 6 percent, Spain – 24.2 percent, South Korea – 19.9 percent, Germany – 19.2 percent, and Georgia - 18.8 percent.
The number of arrivals from the EU increased by 21.3%, amounting to 136,500 people, from the countries of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) - by 9.3% (more than 1.1 million people), while the number of visitors from the Persian Gulf countries decreased by 0.9%, amounting to 549,000 people.
Most of the foreigners and stateless persons (58.7 percent) used rail and road transport. The remaining 40.5% and 0.8% used air and water transport respectively.