Azerbaijan accelerates tourism revival Review by Khazar Akhundov

The UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has further delayed the final revival of international tourism: according to the latest data, it will be possible to overtake the indicators of the prosperous year of 2019 only by 2025. But if in the past two years, the development of the tourism sector was impeded by the pandemic COVID-19 and quarantine restrictions, now the recreational sphere is braked by the fuel crisis and hyperinflation caused by it, plus the threat of expanding the war in Ukraine to the regional level. And the danger of a new wave of coronavirus has not yet been fully eliminated - in China, for example, pandemic restrictions still remain in place. Nevertheless, the recovery rate of tourism in some regions of the world is noticeably higher than the global average. Positive developments are emerging in Azerbaijan, which has entered the next summer vacation season with good statistics on tourist activity.

Meanwhile, earlier this year, UNWTO experts predicted that it would be possible to increase the global traffic of tourists up to three years ago by 2024. UN experts attributed this positive trend to the success of the global vaccination, lifting of the quarantine restrictions on travel in many countries, and the growth of global air travel. However, still being optimistic about the recovery of international travel, the UNWTO was forced to revise its forecast, once again moving the terms of full operation of the industry, this time for 2025.

Overall, according to recently published data from the World Tourism Organization, in 2022, global tourist traffic reaches 68% of the pre-pandemic level, in 2023 it will increase to 82%, in 2024 it is 97% and fully recover only in 2025 with an expected inflow of 1.5 billion international tourists. At the same time, the recovery will be uneven: a relatively good dynamics is expected in Turkiye, Egypt, some other North African countries, as well as in North America, which already last year showed 15% growth in the industry. In 2022, for example, flights out of the US and Canada will reach 69% of their 2019 levels, with those countries expected to fully recover to pre-pandemic levels as early as 2024.

"Of course, the revival of the industry depends on many factors, not the least of which is the situation around the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. That is, the positive dynamics will increase only if the military conflict does not spread beyond Ukraine - to neighboring countries, and the fuel and sanctions crisis in Europe can be contained within acceptable limits," believes Al-Batuti, UNWTO economic advisor and member of the UN European Economic Commission. According to the expert, in 2019, Russia was the fifth-largest outbound travel market in the world, while Ukraine ranked twelfth.

However, even in a relatively difficult year for the travel sector in 2021, travelers from Russia spent abroad, including in the European market, $9.1 billion. Obviously, restrictions on travel from Russia to some countries will hinder the recovery of tourism in Europe as a whole. And due to the economic sanctions imposed on Russia, including on the aviation industry, the global tourism industry (primarily EU countries) may lose about $7 billion. On the other hand, the protracted conflict in vast Eastern Europe creates serious risks for global air travel, reducing the openness and security of the region for travel and business. Finally, the closure of Ukrainian and Russian airspace has resulted in the need to change routes on long-haul transit flights between Europe and East Asia, which will certainly increase airfares, reducing tourist demand.

According to UNWTO expert Al-Batuti, the situation remains very difficult in the post-pandemic recovery of the tourism sector and the rate of air travel in the Asia-Pacific region: this year their level will be only 67% of the indicators of 2019. Moreover, the most difficult trends are in China, where against the background of new outbreaks of COVID-19 there is not even a hint of easing of strict quarantine and border measures in the short term.

It is noteworthy that despite the fuel crisis and complex geopolitical collisions in Eastern Europe and ongoing outbreaks of coronavirus in Asian countries, there are positive trends in the recreational sphere in Azerbaijan.

According to the State Tourism Agency (ASTA), about 330.6 thousand foreign citizens visited Azerbaijan in January-April 2022, which indicates a more than twofold increase compared to the first third of last year. Russia and Turkiye (together they accounted for 51.5%) as well as Iran, Georgia, and Ukraine are among the top five countries from where most visitors came to our country. The flow from Pakistan, India, Arab countries, and Central Asian states increased noticeably. In particular, for four months of this year, the number of tourists from the countries - members of the European Union increased by 2.7 times, from the Persian Gulf - by 2.6, and the flow of tourists from the CIS countries has increased by 1.8.

These positive trends in the domestic tourism sector have not gone unnoticed by authoritative international organizations: in the Travel and Tourism Development Index for 2021, published recently by the World Economic Forum (WEF), Azerbaijan took 63rd place out of 117 countries. Thus, even taking into account the crisis phenomena of the past two years, our country was able to move up eight places on the WEF index compared to the indicators of the prosperous year of 2019.

However, the improved statistics are no reason to relax, as the dynamics of inbound tourism are still more than twice behind the indicators of a successful year for tourism in 2019, and, according to ASTA, Azerbaijan will be able to return to the pre-pandemic indicators of tourist traffic not earlier than in a couple of years. The tourist flow to the republic in 2019 reached an unprecedented record of over 3.2 million people.

Actually, thanks to the efforts of the State Agency, the Tourism Bureau and other relevant structures, many steps are being implemented aimed at restoring the tourist flow from the Persian Gulf countries, Central Asia, the Indochina region and Southeast Asia, North America, Europe, etc. With the support of the State Tourism Agency, the country's recreational potential is promoted in international exhibitions and specialized forums, products and tours of local tourism companies are promoted, the tourism potential of the Karabakh region is demonstrated and appropriate work with potential investors is carried out in this regard. Over the past year, the specialists of the state tourist agency have introduced a register of rural and guest houses operating in 22 cities and districts of Azerbaijan, and the processes of integration of rural houses and other small tourist facilities on the Booking.com platform have also intensified.

Moreover, along with the beaches of the Caspian seashore, the beauty of mountain and forest landscapes, lakes and rivers of the country foreign guests are also attracted by spectacular events, music festivals, and sports competitions, which become a good reason for the arrival of fans from different regions of the world. Such events, in particular, include the recently completed TEKNOFEST Azerbaijan, which was attended by many thousands of foreigners from 33 countries. No less important in this regard will be the race of the Formula One Championship Grand Prix of Azerbaijan starting in Baku, chairman of the board of the Azerbaijan Tourism Association (AzTA) Ahmad Gurbanov believes. "Each tourist who comes to Baku for Formula 1, spends an average of $3,000: race fans are usually wealthy people, they stay in five-star hotels, use the catering services, other tourist opportunities of the capital," Gurbanov said, noting that the number of fans who will come to the race this year will be at least the same as in the landmark 2019.

"The development of the Silk Road tourist route, the creation of tourist products together with the member countries of the Organization of the Turkic States, which contributes to a tangible expansion of tourist exchange, is seen as a very promising direction," said the chairman of the ASTA Fuad Nagiyev recently, expressing the hope that Karabakh will soon become another important regional tourist destination. These projects find great support from partners in Turkic-speaking countries, as evidenced by the recent election of the city of Shamakhi as the "Tourist Capital of the Turkic world" in 2023. It is noteworthy that in March the city of Shusha was elected the "Cultural capital of the Turkic world" in 2023. Such a status of Azerbaijani cities not only contributes to further strengthening of ties between the Turkic countries but also has a direct impact on the growth of tourist traffic to our country.

The development of tourist relations with Russia is also very promising: the liberalization of quarantine measures, the opening of land borders, as well as the possibility of paying for goods and services in Azerbaijan by bank cards "Mir" will attract Russian tourists. This trend is very significant if we take into account that in the pre-COVID year of 2019, Russian tourists took first place among foreigners who visited Azerbaijan. And interest in our country has not decreased - according to the service for travel planning OneTwoTrip, among the post-Soviet countries, which Russian tourists want to visit this summer, Azerbaijan, having scored 7.7%, took second place, ahead of most other CIS countries.