BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 22
By Eldar Janashvili – Trend:
Tourism sector in Azerbaijan, just like in other countries has heavily dropped due to COVID-19 pandemic, beginning from March 2020, Trend reports on June 22 referring to the Azerbaijan's State Statistical Committee.
So, in the first five months of 2020, 563,900 foreign tourists from 152 countries visited Azerbaijan, which is 1.9 times less compared to the same period in 2019.
Nearly 30.2 percent of the total tourists arrived from Russia, 27.3 percent – from Georgia, 13.2 percent – from Turkey, 6.7 percent - from Iran, 2.2 percent - from India, 2.1 percent - from Saudi Arabia and Ukraine, 1.4 percent - from the UAE, 1.3 percent - from Pakistan, Kuwait and Kazakhstan, 1.1 percent - from Turkmenistan, 0.9 percent - from Iraq and the UK.
Furthermore, 0.8 percent of the tourists were citizens of Uzbekistan, 0.7 percent - Israel, 6.4 percent - other countries and 0.1 percent - stateless persons.
In gender terms, 75.1 percent of the tourists were men, and 24.9 percent - women.
The largest drop in the tourist inflow from January through May 2020 accounted for tourists from China and South Korea - 5.5 and 4.4 times. Tourist inflow from Japan also decreased (by 3.7 times). In general, trips from East Asia countries to Azerbaijan decreased by about 4.5 times.
Meanwhile, fewer tourists came from the UAE (plunge by 4.1 times), Poland (drop by 3.8 times), the UK (decline by 3.5 times), Israel and Canada (fall by 3.3 times), Hungary (decrease by 3.1 times) and other countries.
The total number of tourists arriving from EU states decreased by 3.4 times to 16,200 people; from the Gulf countries – by 2.2 times to 75,300 people, and from the CIS countries – by almost two-fold to 205,400 people.
According to the committee, 66.9 percent of the tourists visited Azerbaijan by trains and cars, 31.6 percent - by planes, and 1.5 percent - by ships.