Azerbaijan's wine tourism promotion praised in Europe Review by Caliber.Az

A high rate of recovery of the national tourism industry in Azerbaijan was registered this year, and in the future, it is planned to speed up projects aimed at expanding the recreational geography and diversification of the tourism product. The work on development of agrarian and ecological tourism and culinary and wine directions is being actively developed with the participation of the European Union. The country's achievements have been noted at an international level: recently Azerbaijan's wine route won the nomination "Best Developing Wine Tourism Product" in the framework of the Council of Europe and the European Institute of Cultural Routes programme.

Azerbaijan is among the few post-Soviet countries that have made steady progress in the post-pandemic recovery of tourism. In January-July 2022, 932,000 travellers from 171 countries visited our country, which provided a 2.3-fold increase compared to last year. Nevertheless, these figures are still a far cry from the pre-pandemic 2019 statistics, when 3.2 million foreign tourists visited the country. To accelerate the return to the pre-pandemic level, the efforts of the State Agency for Tourism (SAT), Azerbaijan Tourism Bureau (ATB), and other relevant structures and associations have been working hard since last year to promote new recreational products, including agrarian and ecological tours, organizing festivals and festivals of national gastronomy, winemaking, etc. Moreover, within the framework of sectoral diversification, the emphasis is gradually shifting to advertising and promoting the tourism potential of the Karabakh region, especially the city of Shusha.

Speaking of new tourist destinations, it is appropriate to single out a relatively new destination for Azerbaijan - wine tourism, or, using professional terminology, enotourism. On the whole, this is a rather young recreational area - its history of emergence does not exceed thirty years. Geographically, the main regions of enotourism are located in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Croatia, and Israel, and in recent years this trend is actively developing in neighboring Georgia. The level of capitalisation of this segment of the tourism sector is quite impressive: for example, in Italy enotourism brings in 2.5 billion euros a year, and in Germany, it attracts 50 million people annually who spend 5.5 billion euros on travel. In the United States, 27 million travelers a year go on gastronomic and wine tastings.

The main purpose of wine tourism is to take keen holidaymakers on an exciting trip to wine-growing regions, where they can join the locals in tending vines and bunches, participate in the grape harvest and assess the wine making process. A standard wine tour programme includes a visit to one or more wineries where the participants are given a tour of the vineyards, a tour of the production process, a tour of the cellars, and most interestingly, a wine tasting. It is not uncommon for larger wineries to rent out their guest houses to accommodate overnight stays. Depending on the climatic conditions in some regions of the world, wine tours run from late summer until mid-November, when the grapes are harvested and processed.

Enotourism is usually directly linked to agrarian and gastronomic tours, which are often combined, where travellers are introduced to local seasonal cuisine and wine products, while also learning about the ethnic and folkloric characteristics of the regions and historical and cultural monuments.

Winegrowing and winemaking festivals have been held in various regions of Azerbaijan on a number of occasions in recent decades. However, enotourism as an independent tourist destination began to develop actively after 2019, when the republic was accepted into the international Iter Vitis ('Vine Journey') network, which brings together wine routes from 20 countries worldwide. The Iter Vitis network was created in 2009 at the initiative of the Council of Europe and the European Institute of Cultural Routes and is a certified tourism itinerary aimed at promoting grape culture, winemaking, and wine landscapes. Travellers can discover distant lands ranging from West European vineyards to the South Caucasus, learn about grape growing, vinification, and wine storage techniques, discover myths and symbols associated with this ancient agrarian culture, as well as take part in various educational and awareness-raising activities.

Quarantine restrictions during the 2020 pandemic, hostilities during the Second Karabakh War, and a number of other objective reasons have somewhat delayed the implementation of the planned undertakings aimed at popularising wine tourism in Azerbaijan. Nevertheless, the first General Assembly of the Iter Vitis Caucasus Wine Route was held in Baku in January 2020, organised by BTA and supported by the European Institute of Cultural Routes. And by August last year, ATB specialists had developed a concept and plan for the Iter Vitis Azerbaijan wine route. At the same time, work began on its integration with a similar project in Georgia, after which both initiatives will be combined into a wine route Iter Vitis Caucasus, and over time this will make it possible to form a through tourist flow.

In particular, the Azerbaijani part of the route includes cities such as Baku, Shamakhi, Ismayilli, Gabala, Sheki, Goygol, Shamkir, Ganja, and Tovuz. Wine tasting, demonstration of national wine-making culture, local grape varieties, and excursions into the history of domestic winemaking are envisaged along the routes to the traditional wine-making centres of the republic. The route has been handed over to local tour operators as a new tourist product aimed at increasing the flow of tourists to Azerbaijan, especially from Europe, North America, and post-Soviet states. This is a very promising destination.

Azerbaijan's efforts to promote its wine heritage have been recognised internationally: in October 2021 the Tourism Bureau was awarded the best international wine tourism product at the Iter Vitis Wine Route awards ceremony in Italy.

This success was repeated in 2022: the Iter Vitis Azerbaijan national wine route won the category "Best Developing Wine Tourism Product" at the annual wine awards ceremony in the Italian province of Sambuca di Sicilia.

It is worth mentioning that in recent years, Azerbaijani winemakers began to expand exports and, with the support of the Ministry of Economy and the Azerbaijan Export and Investment Promotion Foundation (AZPROMO), wineries were established in Poland and Latvia, in China (Urumqi and Shanghai), and advertising and promotion of Azerbaijani wines and brands are carried out through trading houses, missions and exhibitions in the United States, Canada, Germany, Persian Gulf countries, Japan and the Republic of Korea. These efforts are justified: after the pandemic crisis in 2020, domestic winemaking experienced a serious decline, but last year and this year there has been a growth in production and exports: 153.7 thousand decalitres of natural wines and grape must were exported in January-August, which provided growth of 4%. And against the backdrop of export growth, domestic producers of wines and brandy are winning prestigious competitions, becoming more and more confident in terms of quality characteristics.

Similar efforts are being made by specialists from the State Agency and the Tourism Bureau, promoting Azerbaijan's wine routes at international tourism exhibitions. And recently the recreational potential of the Karabakh region has been very actively promoted internationally. There are plans to develop viticulture in this region, which has great tourism potential among other things. According to estimates of specialists of the Ministry of Agriculture, the most promising areas for the cultivation of technical sorts of grapes and development of winemaking are Jabrayil, Aghdam, Fuzuli, and Khojavand regions, given the high fertility of their lands and availability of vineyards here. The government has already submitted its first projects in this direction: it is planned to use existing vineyards in Yukhary Veysalli village of Fuzuli region with a total area of 131 hectares, and plant new plantations on 356.3 hectares and build a winery with a capacity of 1.6 million conditional bottles on the account of preferential credit allocation. The government also plans to develop wine and rural tourism in the aforementioned areas to attract foreign visitors.