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Abulfas Garayev: â€œAbout 40 hotels have been closed in Azerbaijanâ€

29 September 2009 14:27 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Ulkar Gasimova â€“ APA. Azerbaijan participated in 12 international tourism exhibitions in 2009, Azerbaijanâ€™s Culture and Tourism Minister Abulfas Garayev said at the press conference on the occasion of September 27 â€“ the World Tourism Day and the end of tourist season, APA reports.

The minister said though there was crisis in the sphere of tourism in the world, it did not influenced much on Azerbaijanâ€™s tourism and the number of the tourists.
â€œWe have not cancelled any international exhibition or event this year. It shows that the crisis did not influence Azerbaijan. Our delegation and I will leave for Kazakhstan. The aim of our visit is to attend the meeting of the World Tourism Organization General Assembly in Astana. Secretary General of the organization will be elected at the meeting. Former Tourism Minister of Jordan Taleb al-Rifai has been nominated for this post. We will vote for him,â€ he said.

Abulfas Garayev said the results of the tourist season were not bad.
â€œ1 898 939 people came to Azerbaijan in 2008, 1 408 988 of them can be considered tourists. This is 398 196 people (39.4%) more compared with 2007. 783 208 tourists came to Azerbaijan in the six months of 2009. this is 309 people (0.3%) more compared with the first six months of last year. We expect it to rise by 3.5% due to the international events to be held in Azerbaijan by the yearend,â€ he said.

The minister noted that two new commercials on Azerbaijanâ€™s tourism potential will be demonstrated on CNN and Euronews either late October or early November. Abulfas Garayev said 300 students will graduate from Azerbaijan Tourism Institute this year.

25 of them will receive diplomas. We are looking forward to employ professional tourism and travel personnel educated in the public universities. Nearly 200 students are employed now. 16 students are passing six-month education programs in Portugal, France and Switzerland. Training of new personnel will enable us to solve the problemsâ€.

The minister of culture and tourism said Azerbaijan was developing the tourism infrastructure and nearly 20 hotels have been opened since the beginning of 2009 and nearly 60 hotels are under the construction. â€œThere are 370 hotels in Azerbaijan and 79 of them are located in Baku. There are 270 licensed hotels and 227 travel agencies. The hotel construction in Azerbaijan causes great interest of investors and business people. The hotel infrastructure brings 190 million USD revenues, but tourism statistics are not limited only by hotel incomes. A weekly accommodation for a foreigner is 750-800 USD. Tourism sector brings totally 4 640 million USDâ€.

Garayev mentioned illegal activity of the hotels. He said the list of unlicensed hotels was published. â€œNearly 40 hotels were closed in Guba, Nabran, Khachmaz, southern part of the country and several other regions for unlicensed activity. 10 of them asked the ministry for license. There are such hotels that we donâ€™t give them license because they breach rules of sanitary, donâ€™t create suitable condition for the visitors and it is impossible to stay there. Every investor and owner should create conditions within the standards and then ask licenseâ€.