Tourism

Tourism

Project of â€œSustainable Development of Tourism in Altiagacâ€ presented

06 February 2009 14:30 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Kamala Guliyeva â€“APA. Presentation of the project â€œSustainable Development of Tourism in Altiagacâ€ took place at the Azerbaijan Tourism Institute. Carried out by the Germanyâ€™s Ministry of Environment, Azerbaijan-based â€œEcosphereâ€ organization and Altiagac National Park, the project aims to explore the capacity of regional tourism, APA reports. The project manager Eldar Aslanov said Altiagac was useful tourism area because of its mountainous and seaside landscape. â€œThe Altiagac National Park covers six villages with nearly 3300 population, but there are not high-quality tourism facilities in the regionâ€. Aslanov said the National Park needed in the professional guides, restaurants based on local products and observation points for natural visions. â€œMost people are ranchers in Altiagac, but ranching damages the development of ecotourism in the region. Therefore we propose to develop bee-farming in the region, which will not damage the nature. Unfortunately 70 percent of Altiagac population has no idea about the National Park and half of population has poor idea about the tourism income. There are totally 300 houses in the region for overnight stop. Most people wish to rent their houses to the tourists for 10-15 AZN per night. The biggest problem is a lack of water and showersâ€.

Aslanov said it needed to build hotels, to renovate the roads in eight nearby villages, to restore the Shmakhi-Guba road, to give small credits to the local population and to raise awareness for tourism. The drafters will present their projects to the relevant ministries and tourism companies.