Azerbaijan and Russia have quite a sizeable potential for cooperating in the tourism, including the exchange of tourists, Azernews portal reports.
Russia is a major participant in the tourism market of Azerbaijan thanks to no language barrier and abundance of recreation and entertainment opportunities in the country. Azerbaijan State Tourism Agency continues negotiations with Russian partners on implementation of joint projects, Kanan Guluzade, Head of the public relations department of the Agency, said, stressing the sides mull possible options for the creation of joint pilot projects in the North Caucasus region.
“At the moment, the sides discuss details of upcoming joint projects, the implementation of which can begin in 2019,” he noted.
The projects are aimed at developing new tourist routes between Azerbaijan and Russia, as well as at expanding the resort and sanatorium sector.
Moscow and St. Petersburg are the most popular destinations in Russia with Azerbaijani tourists. Besides, resorts in Russia are also the favorite destinations for Azerbaijanis who are especially interested in the resorts of Mineralnye Vody in the North Caucasus. Azerbaijani tourists now fancy Russia’s Zheleznovodsk too (1,500 visitors last year).
Azerbaijan and Russia are also promoting active cooperation between the ski resorts of Azerbaijan and Russia’s North Caucasus. In addition, the two countries intend to launch cruises in the Caspian Sea in 2020.
As many as 2,849,600 tourists from 196 countries arrived in Azerbaijan in 2019, with Russians accounting for about 900K (30.9%).